


The White Flame Burning

by hobbitdragon



Series: Witcher Fics [5]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Emhyr, Childhood Trauma, Developing Relationship, Emotional Constipation, Established Relationship, First Time, Geralt and Eskel have been together for decades, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Oral Sex, Retirement, Rimming, Sexual Inexperience, background Nilfgaardian cutthroat politics, then along comes a horny emperor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: For Emhyr var Emreis, finding himself attracted to the two visiting Witchers while he is in the midst of being forced to abdicate is just adding insult to injury. Worse still is the discovery that they're interested in him, too.
Relationships: Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Eskel
Series: Witcher Fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731811
Comments: 94
Kudos: 161
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gavilan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gavilan/gifts).



> In writing this fic, I have mentally retconned some of the most disgusting and personal things Emhyr did to Ciri, Geralt, and Yennefer. I think it’s more than enough that Emhyr had his troops kill many of Yennefer’s friends and colleagues at the Battle of Sodden Hill, used and betrayed Letho and the Viper School Witchers the way he did, and invaded Cintra, thus killing Ciri’s other family members and leaving her and many of her subjects as traumatized war refugees. That is enough for everyone to be dealing with in terms of their feelings about Emhyr without adding anything more personal to the mix. So for the purposes of this fic, that is the backdrop of Emhyr’s past behavior, not anything else. 
> 
> This fic also takes place in a slight AU where Triss never took advantage of Geralt’s amnesia. I am also, of course, making use of the show’s takes on Triss and Yen.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: Those who know about Emhyr’s relationship with his canonical wife Pavetta will know that it started when Pavetta was 15 and Emhyr was ~30, and that it ended with Pavetta’s death as a direct result of Emhyr’s deceit. This fic makes repeated mention of that relationship, including somewhat explicit descriptions of sexual aspects of it, from Emhyr's perspective. Further, this fic is not a redemption arc for Emhyr. He starts the story morally problematic and ends it much the same. If it will be upsetting for you to read a story about a man like Emhyr having some good things happen to him, please do not proceed any further.
> 
> This fic also includes adult characters fantasizing about themselves as teens sexually interacting with adults. Please mind your needs and choose not to read if this or the above content will be distressing for you.

Emhyr var Emreis stood on the balcony of the third-floor study he used in springtime. It overlooked the rose gardens, the last blooms of which were still filling the garden with color and scent. Currently, the garden presented a much less restful view than it normally did, as it also contained two Witchers. 

Watching the Witchers flirt with each other made Emhyr want to have someone messily and publicly executed. Preferably them. But Lord Voorhis...Lord Voorhis would be a very suitable substitute. These days the man was all smug smiles, knowing that his son would soon be Prince Consort while the so-called ‘White Flame Dancing on the Graves of His Enemies’ would be forced off the imperial throne with enemies still alive and very much undanced-on. Many other members of the court were equally delighted both that Emhyr had finally won the North for them and that he would not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of that labor. 

Emhyr had done everything he could think of to avoid his abdication, but in the end, he had been out-maneuvered. The war had been too costly and too long. He had poured money and men into his victory and now the nobility had presented him with the bill: step down on his own terms with some modicum of dignity left, or be destroyed. 

The helpless rage of it made his skin crawl. He remembered the feeling of waking up with real insects crawling through his fur and quills and this was remarkably similar. 

Below, the Witchers were...playing with each other. Carefree and apparently unselfconscious. In the last two minutes Emhyr had watched them, they had tried to trip each other multiple times, chased one another around the expensive and highly-cultivated bushes, caught one another, wrestled, and finally Eskel had put Geralt into a headlock, mussing his hair before grabbing him by it and pulling him up for a rough kiss on the mouth. Out in the middle of gardens where Emhyr and anyone else could see. 

Perhaps beheading, Emhyr thought. Blood everywhere, dramatic and loud. That would suit Emhyr’s mood. And afterwards, he could go pick up the heads and consider them more closely. Would those startling inhuman eyes look as bright after death? Would the pupils dilate or constrict?

This wasn’t the North, of course, where Radovid had delighted in burning sodomites beside the alchemists and elves. So while the North had tried to distance itself from Nilfgaard by leaning even harder into its prejudices, Nilfgaard had distinguished itself from the barbarians by becoming even more accepting of such things. That the Witchers were two men kissing in the rose garden mattered much less than the fact that they were...that they were...

Acting so _young_ and so _human_ despite being Witchers a century old. 

The guards and scribes and pages in the room behind Emhyr could not see his face. Thus he allowed himself to close his eyes, clench his lips into a tight unhappy knot, and grip his hands into fists on the balustrade. Visible distress, much like any expression of vulnerability, was a luxury he had lost in becoming Emperor. A moment later he took a deep, careful breath, calming his face and smoothing away the tension in his limbs. Then he looked back down into the garden. 

An emperor, even one soon to be retired, could not afford ignorance. Given their hand in both saving Emhyr himself as well as raising Cirilla, Emhyr had for decades now kept close watch on Geralt and the other Wolf School Witchers. And before engaging the services of Letho of Gulet and his fellow Viper School Witchers two years ago, Emhyr had instructed his network of informants, spies, and researchers to give him even more detailed information on Witchers in general. This had turned up a great many strange and conflicting stories that had been difficult to sift for truth. But what _had_ emerged as an inescapable fact was that each of the Witchers currently embracing below were _twice Emhyr’s age._

Emhyr’s jaw ached, sensitive spots on his molars zinging into his jaw as he clenched. Emhyr reassured himself that the Witchers were only here for another few weeks. He doubted they would linger after the wedding and coronation. He could tell that Geralt in particular hated the clothing and the protocol even despite how much of it he flouted--which meant Emhyr took special pleasure in making sure both Witchers were shaved and bathed and dressed to Nilfgaardian standards every day. So much political control was slipping out of Emhyr’s grasp, but he at least still had command of the household staff. That meant that, in a small way, he had control over the Witchers and their insolent bodies. 

Their figures were tiny from this distance, yet Emhyr could still hear it when Eskel, the one with the dramatic facial scarring, smacked Geralt on the ass so sharply that the sound echoed up from the garden walls. 

Emhyr’s nostrils flared as furious heat prickled up his body. He clasped his hands slowly behind him. Blank face, loose body. A skill perfected over decades. Non-response no matter the provocation, followed by a tactical strike later. He shifted slightly, leaning his weight on one hip so his burgeoning erection would slide down one leg of his trousers. 

They both refused to bow to him. He understood it, of course; they were Witchers, who owed allegiance to no country and thus went everywhere. He also knew that this non-allegiance was what had, in general terms, killed the Witchers. No ruler wanted an un-affiliated self-sufficient group of part-magical mercenaries anywhere in their kingdom. Emhyr himself certainly had not, hence why he’d ordered Letho of Gulet killed after he’d served his purpose. Arming Nilfgaardian soldiers with silver weapons and good armor and sending them out to hunt monsters in groups worked fine. Some of them died, certainly, but so did the monsters. The modern empire Emhyr had finally created would have no need for Witchers. 

Emhyr watched until the two small black-clad figures below retreated indoors, presumably to paw at one another in more privacy. Unburdened as they were by positions of state, they had little to do with their time beyond fucking on the fine beds provided to them. Information from the household staff who washed their bed linens supported this theory. 

Witchers were supposed to be solitary creatures, Emhyr wanted to remind them. Lone, emotionless warriors who wandered and plied their trade. Not _this._

To be fair to them, during the court functions they were forced to attend, they were every bit as blank-faced and unreadable as Emhyr himself could hope to be. With Cirilla’s marriage and coronation so soon, nearly every night involved a state function at which Emhyr and Cirilla were required, and the two Witchers were seemingly determined to support Cirilla with their uncouth company. They stood a little too close to one another and touched a little too often, but that was the only break in the illusion of them as unfeeling mutants. Perhaps when they were uncomfortable, they retreated into acting more like the public image of Witchers. 

Emhyr imagined giving the people in the next room some excuse and going back to his private chambers to stroke himself (yet again) to thoughts of the two cat-eyed interlopers in his palace. But Emhyr knew with vivid certainty that doing so would only relieve his irritation for a few hours. He was bound to see them at dinner tonight, and that would leave him inflamed all over again. 

Seeing them at dinner meant being yet again exposed at close range to the thick, scarred knuckles of Eskel’s hands and the long, pale fingers of Geralt’s. What would those hands feel like on Emhyr’s face, his throat, his cock? Would they strike at him loud enough to echo, as Eskel had with Geralt just now in the gardens? What kind of blow could a Witcher’s arm land? Closed fist or open palm, what kind of bruises could they leave? In his age Emhyr bruised like a Nazairi peach. The Witchers could doubtless leave him purpled and tender without even half-trying. 

And the secret of their immense age burned at Emhyr like cupping a coal in his bare palms. _Twice his age._ More than old enough to have fathered him, if Witchers were capable of such things. 

If either of them had been in the right place at the right time, they might have found Emhyr at thirteen when he’d first been cursed and cast from the palace. They might have...cared for him.

It was an idiotic fantasy. In all likelihood they would have been impatient with Emhyr, seeing him as a spoiled brat with no money to pay them for the service of lifting his curse. Yet, the images spun themselves out in Emhyr’s mind regardless. 

He had been small at thirteen. The mage who cursed him had made particular note of that, calling Emhyr ‘almost as little as his namesake’ when he visited the cell. Emhyr had barely come up to the man’s collarbones, and the guards had been forced to use rope on Emhyr because his hands were so slender that they slipped through the shackles they had brought first. 

Geralt and Eskel’s hands would have dwarfed Emhyr’s at thirteen. It was so easy to imagine their big thumbs stroking over the soft, velvety black coat that had spread down his wrists all the way to his second knuckles. He’d been so ashamed of the fact that even his hands were hairy, but a Witcher would not have cared. They might even have _liked_ that tender fuzz, as Pavetta had. And the pale little claws wouldn’t have bothered them either. Pavetta had brought Emhyr’s hands to her tender belly and used his claws to trace little pink marks onto herself. Would Geralt or Eskel’s skin have marked the same way?

Emhyr’s first experience of sex had been the fumbling, awkward attempt of two virgins with very different bodies, one of them barely human. Both of them had gotten their information on erotic pleasure from books and hearsay rather than any firsthand knowledge. The memory of that mutual defloration was mortifying even two decades past. Pavetta had not enjoyed herself, his performance so poor that it had almost destroyed her belief that they were destined to be together. No two people meant for each other, she’d told him scathingly, would come together in that stressful and pleasureless way. Weeks of reassuring her that destiny bound them had been required to get her to try anything again. 

What would it have been like to instead be guided into his pleasure by the experienced touch of a Witcher (or pair of Witchers) who had been sleeping with men for half a century already?

An invisible shiver went down Emhyr’s back. 

Looking back, Emhyr been so _innocent_ at thirteen, before the Usurper had taken the throne. Emhyr had understood even then, of course, that the court was a complex and dangerous place. While he had been a child, he hadn’t been a fool. He had known his father had plentiful enemies, not just politically but personally as well. No man could deflower that many virginal noblewomen or cuckold that many married noblemen without alienating allies and creating foes. And philandering had not been Fergus var Emreis’s only fault. No, it was matched in severity by his extreme largesse in doing so; he had spent _millions_ of crowns on jewels and other gifts for his many amours. And even beyond that, at the request of one of his longstanding lovers he had forced Nilfgaard’s military to accept women into its ranks, which had infuriated many. 

Yet Emhyr had still naively believed in the story of their blessed lineage and divine right to the throne, not yet understanding that it was, like every other such story, mere propaganda. To thirteen-year-old Emhyr’s mind, his grandfather had destroyed the Senate and taken absolute power because that was his _divinely-willed destiny._ And being a divine ruler of Elder Blood (or the son of one) meant being untouchable, unassailable, no matter your faults. So Emhyr had not worried about the vicious whispers or reports of rioting villagers. Let their inferior blood boil, he had thought. They could not reproach the family chosen by the Sun. 

Then came the Usurper and his mage and their plan to torture Fergus var Emreis into granting some veneer of legitimacy to their treasonous rule. To this end, the mage had made Emhyr’s father watch as the mage cast the curse to change Emhyr’s shape. The quills had grown from _inside_ Emhyr’s flesh, spearing out of him from his hairline to his tailbone in a gory cascade. 

The illusion of Emhyr’s safety had burst open just like his skin. 

The nobles and officials who had helped Emhyr during those awful years had done so for their own gain, not because they believed the ‘divine king’ stories or felt tender toward a boy cast into the wilderness, and _certainly_ not because they found Emhyr’s new form anything other than repulsive. Ardal aep Dahy had been the clearest example of this. He had sheltered Emhyr the first week after the overthrow, gotten Emhyr bathed and dressed and moved over Nilfgaard’s northern border. And then last year, Ardal had planned to overthrow Emhyr himself and put Morvrhan Voorhis into Emhyr’s--into _Ciri’s_ \--place. 

Ardal aep Dahy was dead now, of course, and his disgust at Emhyr’s cursed body was many decades past. Yet Lord Voorhis was still alive. Worse still, while Lord Voorhiss had so far been denied the pleasure of seeing his son crowned Emperor, all it would take was someone assassinating Ciri to achieve it. And even if that failed to occur, then Lord Voorhis’ grandchildren would inherit the throne. 

Emhyr’s hands flexed for a moment and he relaxed them just as quickly. 

But a Witcher would not have flinched from Emhyr’s young, cursed touch. When confronted with Emhyr’s inhuman body more than a decade later, Geralt _hadn’t_ flinched. Geralt had instead been willing to fight and die to _protect_ Emhyr. So what might it have been like if Geralt or Eskel or some other Witcher had found him sooner? If Emhyr had not been passed around the self-serving Nilfgaardian elite like an unwanted but valuable pet, and instead had the attention of men who cared so little for power and influence that they refused to bow even to the _conquering Emperor of Nilfgaard?_

Little if any of that goodwill remained between them now, Emhyr thought. Whatever tenderness Emhyr might enjoy imagining Geralt or any other Witcher expressing towards himself at thirteen, no trace of that boy remained. Emhyr was no longer a vulnerable child, nor even Duny, the creature whom Geralt had defended. Emhyr was the Imperator who had at last conquered the North, and specifically the one who had done it by manipulating and corrupting Witchers. 

Every time Emhyr’s thoughts reached that crux of the impossibility of getting anything he wanted from a Witcher, he watched his mind swing away from shamefully-hoarded dreams of tenderness to the other (no less mortifying) extreme. It did so now with the horrifying predictability of the trajectory of a headsman’s axe. 

A man (or a Witcher) might have very little care for someone yet still find it enjoyable to fuck them--or simply hurt them. Maybe Geralt and Eskel would view pleasure extracted from Emhyr’s barely-willing body as the penance he owed to them and their kind. 

An Emperor got little enough in the way of privacy. Not sleeping, not waking, not ever. Servants, guards, and others were always around him. Every little thing he did caused ripples: the way he moved, what he ate or drank, the clothes he wore and the cut of his hair. All of it was used to determine his mood, his favor, and thus what others might do to help themselves or hurt others through him. Sycophants emulated him down to his gestures, and detractors used every eccentricity as proof of his incompetence to rule. 

Which meant that displays of guilt and shame for his own trespasses were also luxuries Emhyr had lost. He could not afford to display remorse. Any sign of weakness, any sign that he was less than completely committed to his own success, would be like bleeding into a pit of vampires. Even now, poised upon the threshold of abdication and forced retirement, weakness would be mercilessly preyed upon. Which meant that Emhyr had to maintain the illusion of complete shamelessness about everything he had done to retake the throne and win the war.

Pavetta had no grave at which he could mourn, and he could not afford any of what would have been required to make one for her.

There was a certain relief in imagining himself the plaything of Witchers who cared little for him. Geralt had made it extremely clear that the only reason Emhyr now had an heir was that Cirilla herself had taken an interest in the good she could achieve through ruling. And Geralt and Eskel already had one another for all the soft, good things that love could provide. Emhyr had given them a princely sum of money for the risks undertaken in returning Cirilla to Nilfgaaard, but beyond that, all he now had to offer to either of them was his intentionally well-concealed ability to feel pain. 

So he pictured the imprint of Witcher fingernails upon the insides of his thighs, the shapes of their palms traced in red across his cheek, bloody cuts from the knives they kept concealed in their tailored clothing, and rings of bruises around his throat. 

There were so many who wished Emhyr true harm and would have been happy to spend hours inventing new ways to torture him. The irony of amusing himself with such fantasies, especially featuring the men least likely to actually _do_ such a thing, was not lost on Emhyr. 

By the time Emhyr returned to his work upon the seemingly-endless paperwork and letters involved in ensuring Cirilla’s smooth move from Witcher ward to Empress, his unruly prick had ceased to betray his thoughts. There was only the cold sweat of dread chilling his lower back.

**

Geralt and Eskel had completed their training forms and moved on to sparring with each other when a familiar pack of footsteps and jumbled waft of scents told them they had gained an even larger audience. 

Geralt spared the briefest glance away from Eskel to see Emhyr var Emreis and his usual retinue of guards watching from the sidelines of the arena. Normally Ciri kept the crowds from staring at the two Witchers as they exercised, knowing how much they hated being made into a spectacle. But not even Ciri could keep Emhyr from something he wanted. 

Eskel spun by Geralt, the tip of his blade passing within a finger’s-breadth of Geralt’s face. 

“He’s watching us again,” Eskel whispered when he fell back into a loose stance that to a less-familiar opponent would have looked like calling a halt to the combat. Geralt knew Eskel in that posture was like a scorpion, always ready to sting, so Geralt didn’t fall into the trap. But he did nod, acknowledging the words. 

“Think he’s gonna get _wet_ again watching us?” Geralt murmured, low enough that only someone with enhanced hearing would know what he’d said. 

Eskel shook his head, clearly suppressing a smile, though most would not have known that’s what the tension of his lips meant. 

“Still not convinced that really happened. You’re just flattering yourself,” he said, and then launched into another attack. 

“Flattering both of us!” Geralt yelped, jumping over an intended blow to his legs and snapping a rejoinder back at Eskel’s undefended side. It didn’t connect. “And I know what I smelled. That extra round of mutagens had to be good for something.”

This earned him another snort and a vicious jab that burst Geralt’s Quen in a single blow. Geralt retreated, dancing away until he had the energy to protect himself again. Not that he thought Eskel would intentionally harm him, but mistakes happened and Geralt had no desire for new scars.

For a while after that neither of them thought of anything but the next blow, the next breath, the next drawing of energy into a Quen or an Aard. Sweat from the bright southern sun ran down the insides of their clothes, catching on their lashes and burning in their eyes. 

Geralt thought he might win this round, his mutations yet again giving him the advantage in both speed and agility, when Eskel threw down a horrendous little Yrden that caught Geralt off-guard and left him dizzy and stumbling. Eskel pursued the opening relentlessly, pushing Geralt into a frantic defense with arms just a little too weak to deflect the barrage. 

The practice combat ended with Eskel’s sword across Geralt’s throat as one knee gave out, the flat of the blade cool on the underside of Geralt’s shaved chin as he dropped into it. 

“Yield,” Eskel demanded, cruel in the face of how the earth still felt like it was spinning under Geralt. 

Before Geralt could do more than woozily attempt to do so, the breeze carried the collected scents of the imperial retinue over to them. 

And there it was again: the bright, sharp scent of arousal, pearling and wet. It was hidden in the thick collection of perfumes and armor polishes, but it was there. And when Geralt slanted his muddled gaze over to them, he found Emhyr’s regard fixed on him, sharp amber stare just as cutting as Eskel’s steel. When Geralt’s eyes slid just a little lower, there was even the suggestion of a lump marring the line of Emhyr’s embroidered robes. 

Geralt smiled crookedly up at Eskel. Damn, his Yrden was just as unfairly strong as the rest of his magic. 

“He’s doing it again,” Geralt whispered. “Can’t you smell that?”

Eskel’s nostrils flared as he took a breath. Then he dropped his sword, looking put-upon, and pulled Geralt upright. 

“No, I can’t smell that,” Eskel growled. “All I can smell is the blasted perfume on him and his guards. I think you’re making it up.”

“Maybe you’d better just bury your face in his balls like a dog,” Geralt grinned, feeling victorious even though he’d lost. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Not half as much as you’d like watching me do it,” Eskel sighed, half-smiling. “Do you think it’s just...I dunno, something that happens to him when he’s angry?”

“Maybe,” Geralt said, wiping sweat from his eyes. “Or maybe he just wants to fuck us. I’d get hard watching you spar with Lambert.”

Eskel chuckled at that. “If you wanna go over there and offer him a fuck, then do it. See how fast you wind up in dimeritium shackles.”

Eskel should have known better than to say anything like a dare to Geralt. 

If either of them had cared about etiquette, they would have been already required to stop what they were doing, bow to His Imperial Majesty, and inquire what he wanted. But as neither of them did, they had not. Probably Emhyr was just bored and had wanted something to watch. Or maybe he really did want something. 

Geralt strode over to him. 

“Emhyr,” Geralt said with clear and intentional insolence, worsening it with the slight incline of his head and shoulders that was what the chamberlain had described as ‘how you might bow to a _whore_ on a _street-corner’_ rather than to the Emperor. The guards grimaced and flinched, some looking at Geralt with fury and others with shocked awe. 

Emhyr’s only visible response was a slight tensing of his lips and narrowing of his eyes. 

“You are in fine form today, I see,” Emhyr replied, gaze trailing up and down Geralt’s body. “Both in your offensiveness and in combat.”

“Like what you see?” Geralt purred. “You’re welcome to a few rounds yourself if you like.”

Emhyr’s expression went completely still and blank while the guards looked on in mixed hatred and horror--except one, who was struggling to suppress a smile. Geralt just lifted his eyebrows and waited. 

“You think very highly of yourself for a man who could barely afford to keep his horse stabled until recently,” Emhyr said coldly. “Might I remind you that your current good fortune is the sole result of my generosity?” His lip curled, but Geralt could hear the way his heartbeat had sped up, and from this close, he could even more clearly see--and smell--the real impact he was having on the Emperor. 

“We appreciated the gesture,” Geralt replied, with complete honesty. The sum of money Emhyr had paid them for bringing Ciri to him in a state of mind to take his throne had been staggering. Literally; it would take both their horses and a hired mule to carry it away when they left. But that didn’t make it less fun to tease the man. “If you want to make a few more personal gestures, you know where to find us.” And Geralt lifted his eyebrows to emphasize what he meant.

Emhyr’s mouth turned down but his heartbeat kicked up in pace again. He said nothing else as he walked away. 

When he was gone, Eskel came up to Geralt’s side. 

“If we end up getting executed, I’m blaming you,” Eskel grumbled. 

“If we get to fuck the White Flame Dancing on the Graves of His Enemies, though, you’ll thank me,” Geralt grinned, earning himself a hard slap on the backside and a shake of Eskel’s head. 

“You’re the one who gets a cockstand at the scent of danger, not me,” Eskel told him, as though he didn’t challenge Geralt to do stupid and dangerous things just as often as Geralt came up with his own ideas. 


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner that night was almost a private affair; just the Emperor’s immediate family, which at this point meant Emhyr himself, Ciri, Morvran, and, at Ciri’s demand, Yennefer and Eskel and Geralt.

Neither Witcher wanted to spend another dinner bored by political conversation all the others were engaged in, but they cared too much for Ciri to refuse. So, freshly bathed and wearing clean linens under the fine black brocades the imperial tailor had forced upon them, they found themselves seated at a fine meal beside Emhyr himself. Geralt couldn’t help but read into that; Emhyr could have positioned them further away, but instead Geralt sat to Emhyr’s right and Eskel just beyond. 

Yennefer and Morvran were talking to one another and Ciri was paying attention to them. So, as no one was looking this way and Emhyr was right there (with his heart already beating faster than its usual for no reason Geralt could determine other than, perhaps, the proximity of a Witcher who had propositioned him earlier), Geralt met Eskel’s eyes before leaning over to Emhyr and placing a hand on his thigh. 

“So is it just that you like watching men fight, or is it a fetish for Witchers?” Geralt asked, low and private. 

They were so close together that when Emhyr turned a narrow stare on Geralt, Geralt could pick out the exact variations of pale brown and gold which made up Emhyr’s eyes. 

“A Witcher of all people should know better than to offer services he has no intention of providing,” Emhyr murmured, tone quietly furious. “You have enough problems in your life without courting my displeasure more than you already have.”

But Geralt only felt vindicated by this response. “You’re right, I try very hard not to take contracts I think are beyond me.” He leaned a little closer and Emhyr’s heart sped up in response. “And it’s not your _dis-_ pleasure I’m courting.” He nodded his chin toward Eskel, just in case this was the issue. “If it’s both of us you want, that’s easy too.”

Eskel’s face rotated toward them. While he didn’t stare at them outright, Geralt could feel the added weight of his attention. 

Emhyr snatched Geralt’s hand off his thigh and shoved it down into the space between their chairs. 

“You like to jest at my expense as if you think it will have no consequences,” Emhyr replied. “Ciri will not allow me to hurt you, but other Witchers? Do you think that merely because I will no longer be Emperor that it is beyond my grasp to punish those like you for your disrespect?”

Geralt had no doubt the threat was completely real. But he merely waved it away. Emhyr was so used to plots and deception he was seeing an attack where there wasn’t one.

“You misunderstand me, Your Majesty,” he said, throwing in the title as a sign of his seriousness. “I’m making no jest. If you’re not interested, all you need to do to stop me is say so.”

At this Emhyr’s eyes narrowed. He said nothing, but an almost charming pink suffused his cheeks. 

A moment later, he caught Morvran’s attention with a question about the latest action his men had seen in Redania. They were, apparently, clearing out the last of Radovid’s increasingly-frantic supporters. 

Geralt exchanged a glance with Eskel, who shrugged. Perhaps the non-response from Emhyr was a refusal. Or, Geralt thought, perhaps this was just too public a place and Emhyr meant to wait till later. 

**

He was proven right when, after dinner, Emhyr ambushed the two Witchers in their room. Or tried to. There were two doors into their rooms, one onto a balcony four storeys up, and the other into the corridor. So when they heard soft footfalls approaching their room from what should have been inside a solid wall, they both turned toward the sound with interest, hands falling onto their daggers. 

A wall panel that looked exactly like every other wall panel opened up, revealing Emhyr. For a split second he looked caught out, clearly not having expected them to be waiting for him this way. But once they took their hands off their weapons, Emhyr’s face returned to its usual neutral expression. 

“So,” Emhyr said, folding his hands behind his back and looking first at Geralt and then at Eskel. “You went out of your way to be as inappropriate and troublesome as possible. You must have had some goal in mind, some thing you want from me. That _you,_ who have been so boorishly direct in every other way, should resort to this blundering attempt at seduction makes me think it must be something very terrible you want.”

It was delivered in an imperious tone, slow and disgusted, but Geralt could smell the acrid tang of the kind of sweat a body produced under stress. And while Geralt’s nose was more sensitive than Eskel’s, _any_ Witcher would be able to smell the Emperor’s anxiety right now. 

Which meant either something very bad had happened to him in the fifteen minutes between the end of the meal and now, or this conversation and whatever it meant to Emhyr frightened him for some reason and he wanted to hide that. Perhaps he was unaware that Witchers could detect such things. 

“Well,” Eskel said carefully. “I was imagining maybe sucking your cock to start with, in a get-to-know-you sort of way. But if you feel _inspired_ to give us more money for some reason, I wouldn’t say no.”

Emhyr’s eyes narrowed at this before cutting over to Geralt, as if expecting him to contradict this in some way. 

“Or whatever you enjoy in bed,” Geralt confirmed. “I’m open to suggestions.”

What felt like a long silence (but was really only a few seconds) followed. 

“You truly expect me to believe,” Emhyr said slowly, “that of all the people in the world, you are propositioning the _Emperor of Nilfgaard_ for, what, a casual fling?”

Geralt shrugged, seating himself on the bed as he unlaced his boots. They were finely made, the fabric black and buttery-soft. Expensive gifts in their own right, especially given that they were only made to be worn indoors. The Witchers had also been gifted boots made from equally-soft black leather for going outdoors.

“If you’re not interested, then just go back out the way you came,” Geralt said. “You don’t _have_ to get sucked off.”

Emhyr did not relax at all. Or rather, his carefully-maintained pretense of relaxation did not shift. To a human the posture and expression would have been convincingly imperious. His miserable smell pervaded the room a little more, though.

Well, if Emhyr meant to be immovable about this, Geralt could move, then. He unlaced his breeches, shucking them and his socks off. Next came his shirt, tossed carelessly over the back of the bedside chair, leaving him in only the fine linen of his underwear. When Geralt laid his hand on his own cock in challenge, cupping it through the thin fabric, Emhyr’s nostrils flared. 

Eskel seemed to figure then that if Emhyr hadn’t called the guards yet, then Eskel might as well play along too. Emhyr’s eyes swung to him almost reluctantly as more of Eskel’s skin also became visible. 

Then all at once, Geralt realized: _Emhyr didn’t know what to do anymore._ They’d clearly gone off-script by making sex an earnest offer rather than a manipulation. Probably Emhyr had not planned on facing two amorous Witchers tonight. 

Unlacing the ties on his last remaining garment, Geralt drew himself out and began to stroke more ostentatiously. His cock rose eagerly to fill his hand. Emhyr’s eyes fell on this louche display and something tightened in the corners of his face. 

“If you come over here,” Geralt offered, “you can have my mouth.”

He half expected Emhyr to refuse, call him a dirty name, and storm out. But instead Emhyr moved forward toward Geralt, casting his stony eyes over at Eskel--though whether to challenge Eskel’s claim upon Geralt or check that this was acceptable to him, Geralt couldn’t be sure. 

Eskel only pulled his shirt off, laying it over Geralt’s on the back of the chair before stepping out of his own underthings. His cock was already half-swollen and ready to be touched. Emhyr’s eyes seemed to catch upon it for a moment, unreadable, before he got close enough for Geralt to reach out a hand and then Emhyr’s full focus was on him. 

One wasn’t supposed to touch the Emperor. Even Geralt was aware of this, in a general sense. But here he was, touching Emhyr while Emhyr stank of stress. Distantly, Geralt wondered if that should worry him. He supposed it would if Emhyr _kept_ smelling like that once Geralt got to work.

Geralt went for the belt first, moving slowly so none of his actions would look like attacks. By the time he got through the layers underneath, he knew what he’d find: Emhyr, fully hard and warm in his hand. Moisture had already seeped from the tip.

Even seeing the thing was a monumental gesture of trust, Geralt suddenly realized. Because Emhyr was sweetly average, which in an Emperor was probably embarrassing somehow. Other people might expect the King of Everything to have a cock to match his power, or even to be compensating for something small, and Emhyr was neither. He had, in fact, one of the most unremarkable cocks Geralt had ever seen, except for the fact that it was attached to a ruler with more titles than Geralt would ever care to remember. 

Geralt gave the royal endowment a pleased smile. He wouldn’t have any trouble at all getting that down his throat. 

**

Emhyr had miscalculated. Gravely, terribly miscalculated. The last time he’d been aware of making such a singular and colossal error in judgment had been the Battle of Sodden Hill, which had forced him to delay his conquest of the North for almost a decade.

He had come to the Witchers’ bedchambers expecting to be asked for the finances to repair that crumbling ruin, Kaer Morhen. In a theoretical way he had been aware, of course, that Geralt’s offer might in fact be a genuine proposition, and that coming here _might_ result in sex. Emhyr had considered that option and been very pleased by it, not least because it meant not having to give the Witchers anything else which would make his detractors question his capacity to rule. 

What Emhyr hadn’t anticipated, or remembered, was how sex _felt._

For Geralt to touch him at all, even in the minimally-invasive way that he was, required that Emhyr display his privates for review and judgment. With both Geralt and Eskel already on display themselves, no sooner had Geralt started work on Emhyr’s belt than Emhyr had realized that in a very real way he was _smaller_ than these men. Geralt’s cock was longer than Emhyr’s, with a pert upward curve and a dark plum-colored head that fascinated Emhyr. Eskel, meanwhile, had a cock that matched the rest of him: big, thick, and covered in landmarks. While on the rest of him it was scars, on his cock it was squirming veins running up the shaft, making it an intimidating sight. 

Emhyr was not a small man, and he knew from reading medical texts that his cock wasn’t small either. But it wasn't...that. What if the Witchers were disappointed by Emhyr’s body? Pavetta had been a fifteen-year-old virgin who had never seen a man naked before. She’d had no frame of reference to judge him for _this,_ at least. But what if Geralt and Eskel were not so easily impressed?

When Geralt got Emhyr’s cock out, Geralt didn’t _seem_ disappointed. He looked rather pleased, actually, though Emhyr could not imagine why. 

And then came the really, truly shocking thing: being touched by someone else was _nothing_ like being touched by himself. Geralt (and Eskel, who had lain down on the bed behind Geralt and was watching them both and stroking himself with lazy interest) was an _entire other person_ whose actions Emhyr couldn't predict in this context. Signs of this manifested right away, when Geralt cupped his hand and spat a mouthful of saliva into it. It was a repulsive gesture, visually and mentally vile--and then he just wrapped his spit-filled hand directly around Emhyr’s cock, slicking up the shaft. 

Why this grotesque action should be necessary was unfathomable. But Geralt just smiled, leaned forward, and wrapped his entire mouth right around the head of Emhyr’s cock. 

All thoughts of spit left Emhyr’s mind. All Emhyr could think about was the shocking, impossible texture and heat of Geralt’s mouth. Rationally Emhyr had _known_ that the inside of a body was warmer, and he suddenly recalled that he’d been shocked by this the first time he’d fucked Pavetta, too. But the actual sensation of hot, living flesh wrapped around him had gotten lost somewhere in the years. The silky-plush mobility of Geralt’s tongue contrasted with the hard pebbled surface of the roof of his mouth and combined with the tight slide of his lips wrapped around his teeth...

It was overwhelming. And, much too rapidly, _too much_ for Emhyr’s body to handle. 

He lost the concept of the normal flow of time as soon as Geralt got started. But even without Emhyr’s usual ability to time things to a nicety, he knew he came too fast. Not immediately upon being touched, his body didn’t betray him to _that_ extreme, but _too fast._ Emhyr helplessly watched Geralt’s face, flexing his hands at his sides in desperation, and not only felt the climax occurring from the inside but saw the exact moment of shock in Geralt’s face.

**

Geralt liked to think he was very good at giving head, but it still caught him off-guard how quick he made Emhyr finish. Geralt was just starting to warm up, thinking about removing his hand and really showing Emhyr some party tricks, when Emhyr jerked on his tongue, swelled that last little bit, and then spilled. 

So Geralt swallowed, lapping at the slit until the last spasms passed. He let go of Emhyr then, because continuing to suck an Emperor into overstimulation seemed like a bad idea no matter how catty Geralt wanted to be at times.

That was when Geralt realized that what he and Eskel did right now would be incredibly, deeply significant. Not life and death (Emhyr _could_ have them killed and come up with any lie he liked for the public, but Ciri would want a real explanation and not be willing to accept bullshit) but of almost equal emotional importance. Because either it had been a very long time since Emhyr had done this, or he’d _never_ done this before, or Emhyr just had very poor self-control. And if Geralt knew anything about fucking non-Witcher men, it was that they got squirrelly about both their size and how fast they did or did not come. 

Geralt fumbled behind himself, finding Eskel’s thigh and squeezing it, trying to silently communicate _Do not respond_ to him. 

“So are you gonna return the favor, or is that beneath you?” Geralt asked, because that was mildly rude in the way Emhyr deserved, without being _specifically_ insulting about what had just happened. 

The man blinked a little, clearly still dragging himself out of the tail end of his climax. But hearing the question, his face closed off again. 

“I am the Emperor of Nilfgaard,” he said coldly as he tucked himself back into his robes. So of course Geralt rolled his eyes. 

“So you’ve never done it before and you don’t want to look stupid. Got it.” At his back Eskel snorted. “C’mon, take my place. I’ll teach you how.”

“You presume much,” Emhyr gritted out, and Geralt thought it must be exhausting to be that uptight all the time. A single orgasm had barely scraped the scum off the top of this pool of bullshit. But the lack of outright denial in the face of Geralt’s bald demands told Geralt everything he needed to know. 

Geralt stood. He expected Emhyr to leave now, to refuse further advances, but when Geralt moved so their bodies were close, Emhyr’s eyes only narrowed. 

So Geralt kissed him. His mouth was still full of the taste of Emhyr, and given the little noise of shock or disgust that the man made, he wasn’t used to the flavor. But he didn’t withdraw, merely allowing himself to be kissed slow and deep, and after a minute his arms came up around Geralt. So he could be coaxed, then. 

Behind them, Geralt heard the small changes of breath and movement that indicated Eskel was coming and trying not to draw attention to it. Geralt shivered into the kiss. His cock twitched, sliding against the expensive fabric of Emhyr’s quilted robes. 

“C’mon, down on the bed,” Geralt prompted, pulling away just enough to whisper the words into Emhyr’s mouth. 

This time Emhyr went. He let himself be moved into Geralt’s place on the bed, at which point Emhyr felt the last movements of Eskel’s arm and looked around at the other man. 

Eskel smiled up at him. Seed speckled his torso and soaked his hand. 

“I see we gave an inspiring performance,” Emhyr remarked dryly. But color rose on his cheeks at the same time, and both Witchers could hear his heart speed up. 

“Gimme your hand,” Geralt demanded, and to his surprise, Emhyr complied, dragging his eyes away from Eskel with some difficulty. Geralt moved the man’s hand to his face. “Spit in it. As much as you can.”

“This is revolting,” Emhyr remarked, and for a moment it seemed like he would not comply. But then he raised his almost-closed fist to his mouth, trying to keep it private as he expectorated into it. 

“Now slick me up,” Geralt continued. “The whole thing, up to the head. Want your lips to slide easy, right? Then make a fist around the bottom half.”

For the briefest moment Geralt felt Emhyr’s fingers tremble as he wrapped them around Geralt’s prick, and then Emhyr got a proper grip and it hid the shaking. 

So Geralt kept going, lifting his own hand to stroke gently down the side of Emhyr’s face. This only earned him a look of narrow-eyed suspicion, especially when Geralt’s thumb pressed into the tender corner of Emhyr’s lips. 

“Open up,” Geralt prompted. 

The glare he got was a pretty contrast to the soft pink of Emhyr’s tongue the brief second Geralt saw it before that mouth closed around the tip. 

Right away it became clear that Emhyr did _not_ know what he was doing. His teeth scraped over the head and his lips were loose, and though his tongue fluttered against the underside, Geralt thought that was more reflex than effort. But this sign of Emhyr’s inexperience was almost...sweet. 

“Wrap your lips around your teeth,” Geralt told him. “It both keeps me safe from scraping and makes a tight hole for me to fuck into.”

The pinched look of Emhyr’s eyebrows didn’t look aroused, but his cheeks were still pinker than usual and his heartbeat hadn’t calmed any. 

Once Emhyr got his lips over his teeth, Geralt spared him the trouble of having to figure out how to move his head and hand together. A part of Geralt wanted to just fuck into that haughty mouth, make Emhyr gag on it till he wheezed and shuddered and his eyes teared up. But it wasn’t even really what _Geralt_ wanted, much less Emhyr. So instead Geralt cautiously moved forward until he started to feel the slope at the back of the hard palate. 

“Your hand both feels nice on me and keeps me from choking you,” Geralt informed him. “Position it so I can’t get any deeper than you want me to go. Then when I thrust, you just keep yourself where you are and let me do the work.”

Emhyr let out a low rumble that might have been disapproval or enjoyment. It was hard to tell. But he didn’t protest or withdraw when Geralt started to move, so that seemed encouraging. After a couple thrusts, Emhyr moved his hand a little closer to himself, keeping things a little shallower, and started to move his tongue in tentative little circles. Geralt rewarded this with a sigh and digging his fingers into Emhyr’s carefully-slicked hair. Emhyr let out a probably-unintentional little noise in response, and behind his back, Eskel’s arm started moving again. 

Well then. Eskel was working on orgasm number two while Geralt still hadn’t passed one, and that could be fixed. 

The sight of both men together--Eskel bare and familiar and smelling like satisfaction, and the Emperor himself new and startling and flushed pink with his mouth all willing and wet for Geralt to fuck into--meant that Geralt himself barely outstripped Emhyr in timing. 

“Gonna come,” Geralt warned, and Emhyr let out a little hum that probably indicated assent since he didn’t pull away. The pleasure settled and spread through Geralt’s limbs before releasing in an easy, quick little climax. 

With the corner of Geralt’s mind that was always on alert, he expected Emhyr to spit or gag. But instead he handled this with grace, tongue squeezing Geralt tight as he swallowed once, twice, then a convulsive third time. His rapid breaths were warm on Geralt’s belly and thighs. When he withdrew, flexing his jaw a little and again revealing the shaking of his hand as he loosed his grip, Geralt felt a rush of both tenderness and satisfaction. 

“Nicely done,” he praised. 

“This hardly requires a great tactical mind,” Emhyr objected, but he still looked softer than his usual grim façade. 

“So what next?” Geralt asked, and this question got Emhyr’s full attention. Those honey-colored eyes swung up to him, fixing on his in silent inquiry.

“Witchers are different from most men,” Eskel replied before Geralt could. “We can go as many times as we want.”

Emhyr’s gaze tightened. “Useful in some situations, but perhaps not this one. Once is a suitable diversion of a few minutes. I imagine much more and the jaw protests.”

“True,” Eskel agreed easily, and he gave a small, crooked smile and raised one eyebrow. “But I still haven’t gotten any attention.”

“The insolence knows no bounds,” Emhyr grumbled--but then to Geralt’s surprise, Emhyr turned around, considering Eskel’s big frame like it was a chessboard or a tactical map. In response, Eskel spread his legs, making room for someone to get between them. He stroked himself lazily at Emhyr, his stare a challenge. 

The sight made _Geralt’s_ mouth water. He could only hope Emhyr felt the same. 

It seemed he did, because a moment later Emhyr moved himself into the offered space. Eskel’s heartbeat kicked up, though of course only Geralt could hear that, and Eskel watched with just as much fascination as Geralt had as the Emperor of Nilfgaard bent his head to a second Witcher. 

Eskel soon got his hands into Emhyr’s hair, mussing it further. The muscles of Eskel’s hips and belly flexed as he braced his feet on the bed and pushed up into the most powerful mouth on the continent. And the bizarre, incredible thing was that Emhyr _let_ him. He didn’t pull away or struggle or slap at Eskel’s hands. He breathed sharply through his nose, flushed with his heart pounding away under his robes of office, and let Eskel fuck his face with impunity. 

Maybe the call for execution would come later. But since it wasn’t happening now, Geralt found himself envious of both of them. He settled into a chair nearby to take care of himself. 

When Eskel’s harsh breaths turned into long, deep groans, and his hips stuttered and trembled in a pattern Geralt knew well, Emhyr responded in kind. It was subtle, and Geralt’s nose was no help since Emhyr’s robes already smelled like his stress sweat and the whole room smelled like semen, but Geralt thought he saw Emhyr’s own hips echo Eskel’s movements sometimes, his free hand clutching at Eskel’s thigh. 

When Emhyr straightened again, he wiped genteelly at his mouth with one thumb. Aside from the color of his cheeks and the disarray of his hair, his expression was so calm that this could have been any other imperial audience.

There was something almost Witcher-like about that reflexive expressionlessness as a way to guard oneself. It made Geralt feel more relaxed around him than he probably should have.

“Can you get it up again?” Geralt asked, because if so, he wanted to see if Emhyr would let him take a ride. 

But instead Emhyr rose, expertly smoothed his hair back into place, adjusted his garments, re-donned his belt, and then strode over to the still-ajar secret door. 

“Unlike you, I have actual duties to attend to,” he said, sounding cold. But his heart was still going a mile a minute. Geralt would have bet anything that this meant the answer was no, Emhyr couldn’t go again so soon, but that he didn’t want to admit that. 

As he disappeared into the passage, Geralt called after him, “Tomorrow night, then?”

The door shut, leaving no trace it existed at all, with no response from the Emperor other than the departing tread of his boots. 

Geralt and Eskel shared a look, waiting for the other man to be far enough away that he wouldn’t overhear them. 

“So that happened,” Eskel remarked at last. _“Did_ that happen?”

“Think it did,” Geralt grinned, crossing the room and straddling Eskel. “Let’s see if it happens again, eh?”

“Mm,” Eskel agreed, sliding his hands up Geralt’s thighs to knead at his ass. “Well, come on then.”

Geralt rode him hard.


	3. Chapter 3

Emhyr went first to a mirror. It was almost a shock to find that aside from a few stray strands of hair and a chafed darkening of his lips, there was no visible trace of what had occurred. He checked his clothes, but they bore no sign either. 

It made all of it seem even more surreal. Like a dream from which he had awakened. 

Mererid had delivered another stack of paperwork that needed to be read, signed, altered, or otherwise dealt with. Emhyr sat at the desk in his private rooms and perused a few lines. Then he shifted in his seat, and after a pause, set the paper back down.

He closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath through his nose, hand flexing on the velvet of the chair. 

Memories of the last hour marched through his mind like Nilfgaardian troops through Redania. The pure want of it _scorched_ him. One palm stuck to the fine wood of the desk, the other to the chair’s upholstery. Sweat broke out along his hairline and along the nape of his neck. Between his thighs his balls drew up toward his body and his cock lay heavy yet unable to fully rise again so soon, reminding him of the wicked feeling of a Witcher’s brazen mouth there, the weight of their pricks on his tongue, the repulsive yet thrilling taste of their seed. 

Only the thinnest thread of self-control had allowed him to leave rather than accepting the offer of more. The throne was slipping out from under him day by day, signature by bloody signature, as he acquiesced to putting Cirilla in his place well before her time. And now, suddenly, he saw how very easy it would be for someone to lead him around by his cock right as he was being dragged from his seat. Would he spend his retirement making a fool of himself just like his father?

But no. He would not tolerate that. He had left after an initial defeat and would not allow another. This was not like his first attempts to conquer the North, where he had been beaten at Sodden and again at Brenna. They were only Witchers, nothing like the Lodge, who were circling around the throne like vultures above a dying beast. Whatever weakness the Witchers had scented, it had not been political. 

Emhyr swallowed, found his mouth dry, and rose from his seat to pour himself a cup of wine. It was a fine red vintage, Toussantois in origin, its bouquet distinctive. A gift from Anna Henrietta nearly a decade ago. 

Its aroma and taste did nothing to cleanse his palate of the Witchers. 

What if he _had_ stayed? What were the two of them doing even now? Both of them had still been hard and ready when he’d left. He had always wondered what buggery would be like if it were with something other than just his fingers or objects in his room. Not that he would ever admit that’s what he wanted, but... 

Carefully, slowly, Emhyr set the cup down on the tray. His own chambers were nearby. If he went there to bring himself to satiation and thus allow greater focus on his work, that was only reasonable. 

Twenty minutes later, still panting inside the heavy curtains of his bed, Emhyr wondered if the loss of one battle was in fact enough to lose the war. If he had not failed at Sodden, he would not have alienated so many of the wealthy families responsible for funding the army and navy, and thus they would not now be forcing his abdication. If he hadn't been so foolish as to respond in any way to the ridiculous offer Geralt had made, if he hadn’t gone to their rooms, he wouldn’t be here now, freshly-spent and yet still burning with desire. 

In fresh outrage he seated himself at his desk to work. 

**

By the time the grey light of dawn illuminated the glass of the windows, the sour tang of frustrated desire had bittered into a grim, forboding sense of doom. Emhyr had slept little and poorly during the night. At first his mind had been a whirlwind of lustful imaginings and recollections, but that had subsided into a kind of dull panic. Then he had lain in enforced stillness in his bed, refusing to capitulate to the pointless urge to toss and turn. Changing position never helped in such moments and instead merely disarranged the bedclothes. And Emhyr detested the feeling of wrinkled linens around his feet. 

So Emhyr rose early, pulling the bell-cord that would have a bath and breakfast prepared for him. By the time he arrived in the bathing rooms, he only saw the chamber maid for a moment before she disappeared out the door with a brief curtsey. 

Emhyr sank into the hot water with a private sigh of relief, and set about the calming ritual of first scrubbing himself head to foot and then shaving himself, starting with his face. A mirror stood upright by the side of the bath for just this purpose. By the time he finished his face and chest and moved down between his legs, the leaden pressure of his own thoughts kept him from experiencing even the smallest thrill at the idea of the Witchers’ reaction should he reveal that he maintained himself in the Nilfgaardian fashion. They very clearly did not shave in this way, given the remarkable thatch of bone-white hair surrounding Geralt’s prick and the thick black nest around Eskel’s. Emhyr himself drew the razor carefully over the thin skin of his scrotum and the fold of his thighs. 

Not even most Nilfgaardian men maintained themselves this fully. But after more than fifteen years covered in fur, Emhyr found he had no taste whatsoever for his own body hair.

Even outside of his grooming routine, Emhyr stood upon a knife-edge. If Cirilla was to be Empress soon, that meant that Emhyr himself was surplus to the Empire’s needs. And a man who had claim to the throne and was known for his vicious, unscrupulous machinations was a very, very desirable target for assassins. If Voorhis or the pack of rabid hounds clamoring after the scent of royal blood were to discover that Emhyr had a weakness for a certain pair of Witchers, the Witchers themselves would become targets. And if someone hurt them...

Emhyr had no pretenses about Cirilla’s willingness to shed blood. She was not pragmatic about it in the way that Emhyr himself was, though. No, the peculiar and baffling idealism that plagued Geralt of Rivia had infected her as well. As a result she believed in childish things like fairness and justice. But all of Emhyr’s intelligence suggested that once incensed, she very much took after _both_ her fathers. So if someone were to hurt Geralt or Eskel, her response would doubtless be swift and vicious. 

For a brief moment as Emhyr cleaned his razor before starting on his legs, he entertained the notion of Cirilla killing someone on his own behalf. But it was too improbable. For the destruction of Cintra alone he had given her enough cause to hate him, and her continued distrust of him was clear. Spending half a year at her side had managed to win her grudging willingness to listen to his political advice, but that was all. 

As Emhyr drew the blade over his ankles in a final few strokes, a thought occurred to him: while many had attempted (and failed) to manipulate him via sex over the decades, and while he used the knowledge of people’s sexual foibles and the promise of rarified forms of sexual congress as tools in his own arsenal, Emhyr _himself_ had never attempted any form of seduction beyond Pavetta’s. Yet if the Witchers desired him, and if their idealism could be manipulated in such a way that they felt obligated to protect him as a current or past bedmate...

A ridiculous thought, having Witchers to protect him as he moved into retirement. Laughable! Puerile. 

_Alluring._

Geralt had, for a time, lived with Yennefer of Vengerberg, had he not? And while Eskel had shown no comparable tendency towards a sedentary lifestyle with a lover, he was obviously attached to Geralt. So if _Geralt_ could be convinced to stay at Emhyr’s side...

The difficulty came in the fact that while Emhyr knew himself to be a man of many strengths, seduction was not one of them. Last night had amply demonstrated that. And while some found inexperience erotic, Emhyr had no information suggesting either Witcher held that particular fetish. Further, Emhyr doubted that someone of _his_ mien was of the sort to inspire that response anyway; in both fiction and court politics, it was young ingenues and pretty catamites who wielded that particular influence, not grizzled old monarchs past their political prime. And even in the unlikely eventuality that the Witchers could be made to respond that way to Emhyr, he was unwilling to display his own need for guidance. It was one thing to accept useful suggestions at the war table, another to admit ignorance of the erotic arts at his age. 

Emhyr rose out of the bath to find Mererid waiting for him in the next room. Mererid advised him of the night’s developments and helping him dress.

Emhyr set the thoughts aside. The desperate fantasy of a man facing his own powerlessness, that was all. 

**

Eskel awoke in a nest of silky softness with Geralt’s scent in his nose. Eskel's loose limbs weighed with exquisite heaviness into the mattress. Beside him, Geralf huffed in his sleep, the warm air tickling Eskel’s forearm where it lay near Geralt’s face. 

Honey-slow thoughts spread through Eskel’s mind. Memories of the night before, thoughts of the day ahead. He lay still, breathing deeply, relishing the pleasure of another quiet morning where nothing was urgent and he didn’t hurt anywhere. 

Finally Geralt woke, and began the day as he usually did by rolling over and resettling himself along Eskel’s side. His head would make Eskel’s arm go all pins and needles in short order, but for now the heat of him was lovely. And his erection was sticky against Eskel’s thigh, a neat twin for Eskel’s. 

By the time Eskel was awake enough to want to move, Geralt was already rocking against him. 

The rest of the day passed as their days in Court usually did. A few orgasms, washing in the absurdly luxurious tub with running water, Eskel shaving his face with the ingenious little Nilfgaardian razors that were much more maneuverable around the pitted landscape of his scars, sparring in the practice rings, luxurious meals that allowed both of them to satiate the gnawing hunger that plagued all Witchers, riding together along the manicured tracks that Nilfgaardians used to exercise their horses, more incredible food, another dip into the tub because why not, and then getting into the finery they were expected to wear and climbing into a carriage together with Ciri and Emhyr to cross the city. 

An actual carriage. Eskel had always thought the things ridiculous and he still did now. But he took Geralt’s hand in his own, focusing his mind on the familiar feeling of a childhood scar on Geralt’s thumb. He slipped into a half-meditation in which he was aware only of his breath, the rocking of the seat below him, and the three heartbeats immediately around him. Sometimes a word or two filtered into his mind as Ciri and Emhyr spoke to one another, but their conversation wasn’t Eskel’s concern. Ciri would bear up under the challenge of ruling. 

Partly the meditation was pure necessity. A Witcher’s cock was always ready to stand and deliver, and the mixed smells of both Emhyr and Geralt in such an enclosed space combined with the vague question of whether something else would happen with Emhyr tonight would have been enough to get a reaction. All Witchers learned to control their thoughts in that regard, but most of them didn’t get caught in such small spaces with so much temptation. It was even weirder with Ciri present. 

At his side, given the slow regularity of Geralt’s breathing, Eskel thought Geralt was doing the same. 

The two of them got through the initial socialization of the evening just fine, as that mostly required ignoring all the shitty remarks people made just outside of human hearing. The crowd was, as usual, full of muttering about the _barbarian half-blood Empress_ and her disgusting fondness for the _inhuman mercenaries_ by whom she had so shockingly been raised. It was the same old garbage, sometimes peppered with the same old expressions of horror about Eskel’s mangled face. The only new element was the theory that, based on the fact that all three of them had facial scars, facial scarification was some Witcher rite of initiation. This was followed by some gross conjecture by a blond nobleman about how much pleasure Eskel and Geralt must have taken in cutting up Ciri’s face. Eskel made note of the man to warn Ciri about him later. 

Some of the gatherings they attended for Ciri’s sake were dinners, which had the benefit of fine food, even if one had to eat it at an uncomfortably slow pace with ridiculous utensils. _This_ one was a dance--a high point in an otherwise frustrating week. 

It would take a stronger _Axii_ than Geralt was capable of to get Eskel to admit it, but he loved the courtly dances. It was worth putting up with the nobs themselves (quite apart from any moral support provided to Ciri) to get to dance this often. Eskel couldn’t have said why he loved it so much, exactly, but there was something about the music and getting to move with someone without violence. It made him feel almost like a human again. 

Nilfgaardian dances were a horse of a very different breed than the dances of the North. The North, too, had dances Eskel enjoyed on the rare occasions he’d been allowed to participate over the decades. But most Northern dances took place in groups, lines of men and lines of women who moved with and around each other. The South, with its much more lax view of sex and greater access to mages to supply charms for birth control, had specialized in pair dances. 

Every dance Eskel and Geralt had attended so far, Eskel had only danced with Geralt or Ciri. There had been a few adventurous nobles who had asked Geralt to dance with them, and this had backfired in every case, as Geralt had refused them all. (Ciri informed them this had caused offense. Geralt did not care. Eskel worried about it privately.) Absolutely no one approached Eskel, however. Which was fine. He understood why. On top of being a Witcher, his face looked like clay stepped in by a wyvern. No one other than Geralt could be reasonably expected to tolerate an up-close view of it. And if Eskel was leading, the only place for his partner to look was at his face or chest. The chest was acceptable, the face was not. 

So Eskel was grateful that, at the cost of only a little teasing, Geralt was game to let Eskel lead him out onto the floor as much as Eskel liked. 

Eskel was three glasses of wine and two waltzes into the evening, watching the floor carefully as he guided himself and Geralt through the other couples, when Geralt chuckled. They were in a crowded part of the floor just then so Eskel couldn’t spare him a glance, but he made an interrogative noise. 

“The Emperor is staring at us again,” Geralt murmured. “Maybe he wants a dance with you.”

Eskel snorted, spinning Geralt partly for the fun of it and partly to pay him back for the teasing. When Geralt returned, he thumped their chests together as if Eskel had pulled him too hard. Eskel snorted again. He also settled Geralt close so that their hips pressed together and he could feel the soft lump of Geralt’s sex through his breeches. The room was too warm, as ballrooms often were with so many bodies moving around in them, but it was still pleasurable to feel someone this closely in public. 

“You should ask him for a dance,” Geralt went on, and out of the corner of his eye, Eskel saw Geralt smirking at him. 

“Think I pushed my luck far enough last night,” Eskel said under his breath, knowing Geralt would be able to hear. 

“Well yeah,” Geralt agreed. “Which is why you should push some more today. See what it gets you.”

“Trying to get me killed again,” Eskel replied, as the song finished and the dance ended. 

“Won’t know unless you ask,” Geralt smirked, and oh, that was it. Eskel couldn’t resist a challenge from him and Geralt knew it, the little shit. 

Eskel downed another full glass of wine first so he’d have the excuse of being ‘drunk’ if he needed it, then went over to where Ciri and Emhyr were resplendent together in gold-embroidered black robes. Ciri welcomed Eskel with a smile and a hand on his arm, Emhyr with only a raised eyebrow. 

“I’m supposed to dance with the Countess herself this next one, or I’d let you take me out again,” Ciri told Eskel at once, looking apologetic. 

Eskel nodded at this, then met Emhyr’s cold stare and held out a hand. 

“Was actually thinking of a different dance partner,” he said simply. 

For a long moment Emhyr stared at the offered hand, then lifted his peculiar pale-brown eyes to regard Eskel. Another second passed, and Eskel was sure he’d at least be cut down verbally in some way.

Then Emhyr raised one of his own hands, cupping it underneath Eskel’s and flipping it over so it lay palm-down in Emhyr’s. 

“You do not lead the Emperor,” he said quietly, low enough that only Eskel and Ciri would hear it. And then he guided Eskel out onto the dance floor. 

Emhyr’s fingers were sweaty. That might have just been the heat of the room, or it might have been because something had upset Emhyr before this, or it might have been a sign of some response he was having to Eskel. That seemed unlikely--Eskel figured last night had been mostly about something between Emhyr and Geralt. So maybe it was because Emhyr could hear at least some of the whispers, which had suddenly changed tone and topic from their usual and were now full of conjecture about what Emhyr was doing, allowing himself to be pawed-at by what had to be the ugliest Witcher alive. Following this were statements that it was clear Emhyr was losing his grip if he’d debase himself in this way, but also more than a few questions of whether this meant Emhyr was starting a liaison with a Witcher, and whether the _other_ Witcher would tolerate this incursion upon his lover, or if the Emperor would be assassinated sooner rather than later. One man in particular stated that he hadn’t hired a Witcher for this, so he had no idea who had. Eskel couldn’t see who had said it.

Eskel tried to shut it out, instead relishing the warm human scent of Emhyr and the sure touch of his hands. He might be clueless in bed, but here he was in his element. He led with a deft touch, curling his fingertips into Eskel’s waist to move him where Emhyr wanted. To keep himself from getting dizzy, Eskel rested his eyes on Emhyr’s aquiline nose, his pursed lips, and the striking black of his lashes contrasted with the mostly-white slant of his brows. 

Geralt was a self-destructive bastard who’d stuck his dick into far too many sorceresses. He’d followed his usual trend here by finding the most dangerous person he could and trying to get their attention. But for once, Eskel couldn’t help but agree that Emhyr was a good-looking man, and there was something alluring about getting to see him in a position that few, if any, ever had before. 

Finally Eskel just closed his eyes and breathed. That was the beautiful thing about following rather than leading: all it required was responsiveness and sure feet. Eskel had both. 

Most humans were fixated upon looks, which meant Eskel had no hope of charming anyone that way anymore. Had Eskel himself been a human, he would have long since figured that Geralt was faking his interest and disappeared so Geralt could find someone better. But since Eskel was a Witcher, he had no choice but to believe Geralt when he said he was in love. Eskel could _smell_ the relaxation and willingness of Geralt’s body in their times together, hear the slow contentment of his heartbeat.

And here, now, with Emhyr, Eskel could smell the fabric of Emhyr’s clothes, the perfume of his hair treatment and soap, the wine he’d drunk and the spiced pheasant with carrots he’d eaten for dinner, and below that...below that, the luxuriant heat of arousal that Geralt had claimed was there. 

It shocked Eskel enough to blink for a moment. In that moment, he caught another dancer staring at him in disgust, and he quickly closed his eyes again. 

Eyes shut, smelling someone else’s arousal--it was like being thirteen again. One of their instructors at Kaer Morhen had made them practice their Signs blindfolded for months. _Feel the Signs,_ he’d said. _It’s not calligraphy where you have to see what you’re doing. You must_ feel _it._

Eskel had been good at Signs right away. Geralt’s newly-changed, newly-growing body had responded eagerly to the sight of Eskel setting a practice dummy on fire. Geralt had smelled just like this.

Emhyr’s warm, skilled touch guided Eskel as though _he_ were a sign that Emhyr was shaping. Eskel imagined those hands in his hair, those thighs around his ears, the give of Emhyr under him. 

When the music wound down, Eskel opened his eyes and looked at the other man. Emhyr was pink-cheeked again, handsome and unreadable except for the delicious tang of him in Eskel’s nose. 

“Come to our rooms later,” Eskel murmured. “I don’t care if you lead or follow.”

Emhyr’s brows lifted just the tiniest increment and that was all. In lieu of response he led Eskel to the edge of the floor, where Geralt and Ciri were deep in conversation about something Geralt had apparently overheard tonight. 

To everyone’s surprise, Emhyr extended his hand to Geralt. 

“Give me the next dance,” he commanded. It wasn’t a request. 

One corner of Geralt’s mouth crooked up. “Why not,” he replied. “Since you showed Eskel a good time.”

It would be another minute before the next song started. Emhyr’s eyes traveled up and down both of them, to the point that Ciri gave Geralt a narrow-eyed look of her own that made her look very much like her father. And when Emhyr led Geralt out onto the floor, she moved close to Eskel. 

“What the hell are you two doing, dancing with him?”

“Hopefully, getting him in a mood to let us fuck him tonight,” Eskel told her, because it wasn’t the sort of thing she’d appreciate finding out after the fact. 

“Gross,” Ciri snapped immediately, and then seemed to actually realize what Eskel had said. “Wait, what? No. What?!”

“It was Geralt’s idea,” Eskel told her, happy to throw him to the wolves. 

The noise of disgust that Ciri made spoke volumes. “Okay, that does make sense. But _you?_ And _him?_ He’s not--everyone knows he’s not interested in that. He hasn’t taken a single lover since my mother, and as far as I know, there was no one before that.”

Eskel didn’t know what to say to that. He hadn’t known. The information made him shift uncomfortably, some of the blissful looseness of his limbs fading. He had figured Emhyr was just a little out of practice, or maybe inexperienced with men. Ciri was making it sound like the man was practically a virgin, though. If that was the case, why would Emhyr allow something like that from someone like _Eskel?_

“Well in case you don’t know, there are secret passages between Emhyr’s bedroom and probably most of the other rooms on that floor. Maybe even other floors,” Eskel told her pragmatically, because that was important information for the future rulers to have. 

“How do you already know tha--gross,” Ciri sighed again. “Wow. Well this evening has taken a sudden and horrible turn.”

As if to prove it, Morvran turned up at her side then, smiling in the smarmy way he had with Ciri. She was not any happier about it now than she had been half a year ago. But she tolerated his company better, because as far as she and Eskel and Geralt could tell, Morvran was a surprisingly decent man. A clever military tactician, he’d make Ciri a strong ally on that basis alone. But beyond that, he was mostly just obsessed with his horses. Eskel had overheard him in the stables talking affectionate nonsense to his collection of beautiful mares on several occasions, and that, at least, wasn’t a bad sign about a man. 

As he led Ciri away, Eskel heard him ask what Emhyr was doing, dancing with the Witchers. 

Yennefer took Ciri’s place at Eskel’s side, with the exact same question. 

“What on earth were you doing with Emhyr?” she asked, in her usual direct way. “What is _Geralt_ doing with him?”

Since there was a disturbingly high probability that if he offered any resistance, Yennefer would just read the answer out of Eskel’s mind, he was just as honest as he had been with Ciri. 

“Trying to get laid with him,” Eskel told her. “It’s Geralt’s fault.”

“Of course it is,” Yennefer sighed. But a fond little smile lingered in one corner of her mouth. Even though they’d finally broken up due to Yennefer’s efforts in finding another djinn, she was still fond of the idiot.

“You two do realize that Emhyr will likely be dead within the next few months?" she asked then. "Half the world wants him gone, and with all the powerful enemies he’s amassed and without the throne under him, one of them will succeed sooner rather than later. Probably Morvran’s father, in fact.”

Eskel shrugged. The last two days had been enjoyable, but that meant little about who Emhyr was as a person. 

“Like I haven’t already had every lover I’ve ever cared about die,” he said. “Besides, it’s a casual fuck, nothing more. Or will be, if he lets us have it.”

“Mm,” Yennefer intoned. “You say that, but you aren’t stupid enough to be this ignorant of Nilfgaardian politics. Whom the Emperor dances with at an occasion like this is a mark of his favor--and you just accepted the favor from a man being forced off his throne by his enemies, so you have accepted the attentions of his enemies. Have you not noticed how little he has danced this evening? Few people want his favor now. But you two, through just being horny, have bumbled your way right into the viper’s nest.”

Eskel was grateful that Yen had at least deigned to tell him. It was more than she would have done for him in the past. She had softened since breaking the djinn’s spell.

“Thank you,” Eskel told her honestly. “I appreciate the tip.”

“I would take it as a personal favor if you and Geralt don't get yourselves killed alongside the Emperor,” she said as she moved away into the crowd. 

At least Yen had forgiven him for still being with Geralt now she wasn't anymore. There was that. 

**

Eskel was a fine dancer so far as Geralt could tell, but Emhyr was a _master._ His movements were fluid, graceful, meaning that Geralt with him could be too. 

He wanted Emhyr on top of him, fucking him with confidence and power just like this. Probably in reality Emhyr wasn’t capable of this much finesse in bed, but that was fine. Eskel was. Eskel could fuck Geralt and Emhyr could have his mouth. Or even just a strong grip in Geralt’s hair as he watched Geralt get fucked. 

“Come to our rooms after this,” Geralt purred.

Emhyr’s expression did nothing at first, focused on the other dancers. Then his eyes flicked to Geralt’s for a moment. As they slid away, a small smile graced his mouth. 

“If you insist.”

Geralt, having prepared himself for more resistance than that, covered his surprise with a smile of his own. 

**

When Emhyr climbed into the carriage, he expected that it would be another exercise in self-control. To not stare at the Witchers, to not think things that made him flush or sweat or do anything visibly untoward. He had expected them to be silent and seemingly absent as they had been on the way over, but no sooner had they closed the doors behind them and set off than Eskel leaned forward to look at Cirilla.

“There’s a creepy guy you should be careful of,” he told her. 

Cirilla made a face unbefitting of an Empress. 

“There are so many. Which one is it this time?”

“Blond guy, mid twenties, tall, skinny, brown eyes, voice in the middling range. Smells like very expensive rose perfume.”

Cirilla looked puzzled--the description could potentially fit several men in the court--but Emhyr immediately knew to whom Eskel was referring. 

“Ah. Finendar aep Dahy. I forced his uncle to commit suicide last year rather than being publicly executed for treason. What did Finendar say?”

Eskel sat back in his seat, setting his hand casually on Geralt’s thigh altogether too close to the groin. Geralt leaned into Eskel’s shoulder. “I think he was just being gross,” Eskel said. “Talking about how Witchers must practice ritual scarification to account for all three of our faces--only then he got real into describing his mental image of us holding Ciri down as a child and cutting up her face.”

“He asked me for a dance this evening,” Cirilla said thoughtfully. “I refused him.” At Emhyr’s questioning look, she clarified, “In the polite way you taught me, of course, said I was tired and thirsty. But it’s interesting that he asked.”

Emhyr forced himself not to let his eyes wander to Eskel’s hand again, nor to think about what might happen between the three of them once they returned to the palace. “What else did you two notice this evening?”

Eskel shrugged. “Lots of whispers about you dancing with us. What was that about, by the way? Didn’t really expect you to say yes.”

A Nilfgaardian would have known better than to ask so direct a question, especially of Emhyr. Emhyr allowed himself to purse his lips in displeasure. 

“I do not need to explain my whims to you.”

For a moment Eskel stared at him, the scar at his mouth making him look angry, and then his gaze slid away. Perhaps it would have ended there if not for Cirilla. 

“It’s because he thinks he’s going to die soon,” she sighed, waving at Emhyr with one hand. “Nothing left to lose, might as well do what he wants. Including make a scandal with two Witchers.”

Emhyr stiffened in his seat. 

“Cirilla Fiona--” he began, but she just talked over him. 

“Oh please. You don’t talk about it, but it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain. If you had this under control, you wouldn’t be abdicating.”

Unsure of what to say to this, Emhyr subsided into silence. He regarded the carriage wall beside the Witchers, looking at them without quite looking at them. Neither of them seemed very surprised either. 

“Ciri, if you wanna leave with us...” Geralt began. 

“That is no longer an option!” Emhyr spat, furious that Geralt would even offer it. “One cannot stand half-in-half-out of the line for the throne. And any sign of weakness or failure is punished. As my current situation demonstrates.”

“Obviously,” Ciri snapped. “The ridiculous thing here is that you haven’t asked for any real help. You’ve just been quietly leveraging political allies, what few you have left and ones you won with the conquest. But there are other people who could help you.”

Emhyr stared at her, wondering what she meant. But then, perhaps it didn’t matter. 

“I would say it’s charming that you still believe the world to be so kind, but it is a most unfortunate trait in the future Empress,” Emhyr sighed, and did not shift in his seat or move his arms or do anything else. His hands stayed neatly, calmly folded in his lap. “But if all your experiences so far have not trained that trust out of you, perhaps only further first-hand experience of the court will do so. I can only hope you live long enough to learn.”

At this Ciri let out an extremely unladylike scoff, a rough, wet noise in the back of her throat. Doubtless another habit she had learned from these two Witchers. She certainly hadn’t got it from Yennefer. 

“No wonder you’re fucking around with them!” she spat, waving at the two across the carriage. “You’re trying to convince them you’re worth protecting, aren’t you? If that’s what you’re attempting, drop it. They don’t need that.”

To Emhyr’s surprise, a hurt look briefly crossed Eskel’s face, pinching his eyes and making his twisted lip curl even more. Then the man blinked and it smoothed away into nothingness. 

“Tell me then, Cirilla,” Emhyr said, surprisingly discomfited by that brief look of pain. He didn’t bother to deny the accusation. The thought _had_ crossed his mind, and even if it hadn’t, they wouldn’t believe him if he protested. “What help do you think I could ask for that I have not already?”

She turned to stare at him, green eyes piercing. 

“Mine,” she said. 

In that moment Emhyr was grateful for his long-practiced habit of schooling his expressions, because it meant he did not make a fool of himself by displaying the shock he felt. He merely returned her look, tilting his head slightly to prompt her to go on, for all outwards appearances waiting for her to explain. But something hurt along his breastbone and inside the joints of his wrists. The carriage suddenly seemed hot and airless. 

“Yours,” he echoed back to her.

“You have only ever seen me as a political object,” Cirilla said, and she looked so much like her mother in that moment that it took Emhyr’s breath away.

Pavetta had said something similar just before she died--just before his negligence in listening to Vilgefortz had gotten her killed. For once, Emhyr did not have to enforce his own stillness. A kind of muffled distance fell over him, making it easy to do nothing but watch. His hands felt very far away.

“That means I have always been more useful to you alive than dead," Cirilla went on. "Has it not occurred to you that the same is true of you? You are one of my best allies in the hellhole that is the Nilfgaardian court. I would rather you stay alive to help me through it.”

All Emhyr could think of was how viciously he resented that the Witchers were here to witness this--and that the coachman above and the footmen behind could probably hear it too. Cirilla still understood so little of how all this worked. 

But perhaps he was underestimating her by thinking that. Perhaps the presence of her adoptive father and uncle was what had allowed Cirilla the comfort to say this. Sometimes one needed a sympathetic audience into which to speak. 

Perhaps she _wanted_ even the servants to hear. Perhaps she was saying one thing and doing another behind his back. Emhyr could hardly blame her if she too wanted him dead. 

“What sort of help do you imagine providing?” Emhyr inquired, pleased with the calm sound of his own voice. 

“I don’t know. We’d have to work together to figure something out. Maybe we could find a place only the two of us know about, staff it with people who don’t know who you are, and you could live there anonymously. After all, you’re good at lying to those close to you about who you really are.”

A kind of numbness settled over Emhyr. The pain in his chest disappeared and he felt nothing. It was a relief not to have to expend effort to conceal his reactions anymore. 

“How droll, Cirilla. Still, I take your meaning. There are types of aid only you can offer. I will think on it.” He turned his eyes on the other two occupants of the carriage, wondering if he could push this a little further. “And you two? Does Cirilla’s offer include your support?”

The two Witchers looked at one another. There was something very intimate in the fact that they could exchange meaning in silence this way. 

“No,” Geralt shook his head. Both Witchers looked Emhyr in the eyes. “We’re only here because Ciri is my child surprise and she is not asking us for any real political involvement, just our temporary presence.”

In the corner of Emhyr’s eye he saw her nod at them. A very tender look crossed Geralt’s face, mixed apology and pride. When Emhyr looked at her, she was returning the expression. 

The rest of the ride passed in agonizing silence. 

**

Ciri opened the door and strode off as soon as the coach had stopped moving. Slightly before, actually, as she had the door open and her foot on the step as the carriage was slowing to a halt at the back entrance to the palace. She was marching away, skirts held high, before any of the men had gotten down. A contingent of the guards waiting to meet them hastily broke off and followed her inside. 

Geralt couldn’t blame her. He’d had some difficult conversations in his life, and while this one had barely involved him, it was still awkward. Emhyr had deserved the roasting Ciri had given him, but all Geralt had been able to think throughout is _Thank goodness that’s not me._

Worries about whether he had been fit to be in charge of the care of any child had plagued him for the last decade. Seeing her interact with Emhyr made him feel a little better; if she’d talk to the Emperor that way, perhaps Geralt didn’t need to worry so much. It seemed like she wasn't shy of saying it if she was unhappy with someone's parenting. 

But Geralt was both relieved and disappointed now, because Geralt figured the discussion had well and truly killed any erotic mood with Emhyr for the evening. 

He climbed down from the carriage after Emhyr. The man rapidly disappeared into the palace without another word, proving Geralt right.


	4. Chapter 4

There was definitely no Emperor in their bedchamber for the rest of the night. The next day, Emhyr seemed intent on ignoring them completely anytime they were in the same room. 

From this, Geralt assumed that they had already seen the last of Emhyr in any setting except the formal. But the next night, Emhyr appeared in their chambers. 

They’d been enjoying a quiet evening--Eskel was in the middle of sharpening his daggers, Geralt reading one of the many gorgeous texts from the palace library--when the secret door swung open and in strode Emhyr. He was fully-dressed, as if he had just come from a meeting. He still had on both his boots and his chain of office. 

“Please refrain from saying anything idiotic,” Emhyr said, and with great intentionality, removed the heavy golden chain from his shoulders and set it on the desk beside Geralt’s book. As he started unfastening his heavy robes, Geralt sprang to his feet and kissed him. 

By the time Eskel had set his blades aside and come across the room to join them, Emhyr was out of his robes and down to his thin linen shirt and breeches. The removal of his heavy outer layers made both the acrid smell of his stress and the warm, aroused smell of his body clearer in the air.

When Emhyr twisted to kiss Eskel, it left Emhyr's whole back open to Geralt’s attentions. So Geralt pressed up close behind, nudging his hips against Emhyr’s backside and sweeping the dark hair up away from Emhyr’s nape--which was when Geralt saw the scars.

They covered the back of Emhyr’s neck and speckled upward behind his ears into his hair as well as disappearing down into the translucent fabric of his shirt. Small, round, and clearly old, Geralt would have said they were pox scars except for their peculiar localized nature. As Geralt bent to kiss along the tender skin of Emhyr’s nape, though, he realized what the marks were: they were where Emhyr’s _quills_ had been. 

Even if the past could not be repeated, it relieved Geralt to be reminded that somewhere in this difficult, prideful Emperor was someone who had once been vulnerable enough to merit saving. 

**

Damned Witchers and their damned soft, smirking kisses. Emhyr would have feared they’d be the ruin of him, but the court itself had done that already. He had only a week and a half left as Emperor and he dared not even assume that assassins would wait until then. Why would they? The succession was clear. Most of the paperwork was already signed, Cirilla’s chain of office and wedding gown both already constructed, and the preparation for the coronation festivities well underway. 

All of that was beyond intolerable--and to add insult to grievous injury, Emhyr had _still_ spent the day yet again thinking of the Witchers’ mouths, their hands, their strong and capable bodies. It was the most basic of diversionary tactics, his own mind trying to fool itself that the real action was not happening by focusing on something else, and yet it was working and he did not want it to stop. 

It was making him reckless. He had intended, tonight, to have a repeat of his last encounter in their bedroom. To keep himself dressed and largely inaccessible, limit how much they touched him. Yet when he found himself naked on their bed with Eskel sprawled bare underneath him, smiling his snarled-up smile as he ran his hands up and down Emhyr’s sides with the whole damned landscape of Emhyr’s scars on display--it grew more and more difficult for Emhyr to convince himself to care about his own self-imposed limitations. He might be dead by this time tomorrow, and of all people, Witchers were least likely to care about the scars left behind by his curse, if for no other reason than because their scars were so much worse. 

Finally Geralt pulled away from nibbling at Emhyr’s shoulders. 

“I was thinking you’d fuck me this time,” Geralt said, and Emhyr could hear the man’s louche smile even before Emhyr turned to see it. 

Emhyr stared at him, suddenly recalibrating his expectations for this evening yet again. He had expected the Witchers to be...well, rather more Northern about such things, and thus hesitant to do this so quickly, or at all. He had _considered_ this possibility and did have a response prepared, but he disliked that he’d been wrong again so soon. 

If Emhyr fucked anyone, he felt regrettably certain that the evening would be over in a rapid and mortifying fashion. But if his cock went untouched, he could enjoy himself for much longer. That left him relatively few options. 

“Consider yourself fortunate,” Emhyr said. “I will allow you the liberty of pleasing me in that way instead.”

One of Geralt’s white eyebrows lifted. 

“That mean you want me to fuck you? All right, if you like.”

In that, at least, Emhyr had correctly predicted the Witcher’s behavior. No protest, no mockery, as if it were totally unremarkable that the Emperor might wish to be the passive partner for another man. Even here in Nilfgaard, that would excite denigration if it were known. The Emperor couldn’t even dance in the following position, much less _this._ It was technically blasphemy for Geralt to even accept the invitation, much less follow through. 

But Geralt just moved away down the bed. Unceremonious as the Witchers always were with him. 

“Ohh, look at this,” Geralt crooned, and trailed his fingers over the bare skin of Emhyr’s balls and the equally smooth expanse of his inner thighs. Emhyr shivered, feeling himself start to stiffen in response. “He’s all shaved, Eskel. Smooth as anything. This your way of asking me to have a taste?”

The satiny pleasure of Geralt’s mouth haunted entirely too many of Emhyr’s waking thoughts, and while he did not want another evening cut short by his own lack of control, he thought he could at least weather a brief refreshing of the memory. 

“I won’t deny you the privilege. But keep it brief,” Emhyr allowed.

Despite this invitation, he just barely suppressed a ticklish flinch as Geralt ran his hands over his backside. Emhyr was unused to being touched there by any but himself, and he was keenly aware of the way the scars speckled halfway down his buttocks and hips. 

“Alright. Just tell me when to stop.”

Just as Emhyr was about to turn over to make himself available, however, he got only the briefest warning of hot breath on his taint before Geralt sealed his mouth right over Emhyr’s hole and pushed his tongue against it, teasing into the folds. 

It took one of the supremest acts of will Emhyr had ever executed not to spring right off the bed in shock. Yet he couldn’t help the way his eyes went wide and he tensed against Eskel--who was watching this reaction with a look of delight. 

“Ahh, he’s good at that. Too bad you only want it a little while. If you let him, he’ll go as long as you like.”

Emhyr stared back at him, stunned. Geralt must’ve taken the stillness as acceptance, because he dug his thumbs in to spread Emhyr a little wider and traced a circle as if shaping a bullseye.

Some of the books of erotica Emhyr had read over the years had described this act. But it had seemed so repulsive, so dangerous and obscene that he had been certain it was mere fiction with no connection to reality. It was not, Emhyr had thought, something any sane person would even consider. 

None of the books had mentioned that it _tickled._ Geralt’s sharp nose pushed right into Emhyr’s hypersensitive tailbone, and Geralt’s tongue--his _tongue--_

\--His tongue slipped _right inside._ Like an assassin’s stiletto through lace, it met with little resistance.

For several long moments as it withdrew and returned it was still just too much to even process. Then, in a dizzying rush, Emhyr’s libido caught up to current events all at once. His face flamed hot, his cock twitched (which made his hole twitch too, _around Geralt’s tongue),_ and Emhyr’s nails dug into the bedclothes. He hid his face in Eskel’s shoulder and swallowed desperately against some awful noise that wanted to escape him. 

“Making me jealous,” Eskel purred into his ear, and while Emhyr supposed he couldn’t be certain to which of them Eskel was referring (clearly he couldn’t be certain of _anything_ when in bed with these two), the thought of being jealous of _Geralt_ for his position in things was incomprehensible. 

Then Emhyr thought no more about it, because Eskel took Emhyr’s face in his hands and kissed him. Caught between the two of them this way, it was as though they were kissing one other right through him, with his own whole body no more than a trembling and fragile obstacle to their touch. 

How long it went on, Emhyr had no idea. All the knew was that Geralt breathed heavily every time Emhyr twitched, and the harder Emhyr got, the more responses Geralt got out of him, until Geralt was letting out little whimpers Emhyr could _feel_ and the tension of Eskel’s fingers on Emhyr’s neck and back bordered on painful. 

When Geralt straightened and Eskel turned away to bury his face in Emhyr’s hair only a heartbeat later, Emhyr felt as though he were surfacing from underwater. Or more accurately, some sweaty, impossible dream. He panted into Eskel’s collarbone. 

“Could do that all night, but you said just a little while,” Geralt said, sounding mournful and husky. “Lemme get the slick.”

Emhyr had asked for this but he suddenly felt unprepared. Still, he wasn’t about to admit that, so he let Eskel roll him onto his side. Eskel reached down between Emhyr’s legs to heft and fondle his balls. 

“Well would you look at that, he was right. All bare from the nostrils down.”

In Emhyr’s already sensitized state, even that small attention made his prick leap. The sight of it widened Eskel’s smile. 

“You want fingers first or straight to the main event?” Eskel asked, and this too was unexpected. 

“Why would I let you have anything right away when I could make you wait,” was all Emhyr could think to say, because he couldn’t just _admit_ that he wanted to have this for as long as he could. It made Eskel laugh. 

So Emhyr wound up with one heel hooked over Geralt’s shoulder and three of the man’s fingers curled into him, coaxing helpless little shivers from Emhyr as Geralt unerringly sought out and stroked over and over that sensitive little bump inside him. When being doubly observed in such a state became intolerable, he prompted Geralt to move things along. 

In a shockingly short amount of time, Emhyr found himself perched atop Geralt, with Eskel laid out alongside like a platter of somewhat battered but still mouth-watering fruit. 

“At your own pace,” Geralt said. As if Emhyr had any idea what that might be!

But he supposed the next step _was_ obvious. Geralt reached down to hold his prick upright, Emhyr backed into it until he felt Geralt slot into place, and then he sank down. 

It occurred to Emhyr with sudden and awful clarity it that was Geralt’s _actual cock_ gently slipping into him like that. Emhyr knew from extensive use of his own fingers exactly how soft and hot and tight he was inside--and Geralt could _feel_ that. He would be and probably already was enjoying that, which seemed to be the case given the way he bit his lip and stared up at Emhyr all wide-eyed. That awful, tantalizing knowledge sent shivers of sensation up and down Emhyr’s spine. 

But a second later Geralt seemed to catch his breath. “Shoulda known you’d be this tight-assed,” he said, grinning. 

Emhyr rolled his eyes. “Ah yes, _very_ clever, certainly no one has ever made that joke about me before,” he snapped. 

At this, Geralt actually looked contrite, and raised an arm to stroke down Emhyr’s side. 

“Sorry, yeah. One thing to make that joke when we’re both clothed, another to make it now.”

Uncomfortable at this sign of earnestness, Emhyr shifted, lifting forward just enough for their point of connection to start to slide and then sinking his weight back down till Geralt’s bony hips dug into his thighs again. If Emhyr could just position the head of Geralt’s cock correctly--but after two more shallow motions it became clear that it would be difficult to stimulate his prostate this way. 

“This is not the best angle of approach,” he said irritably.

“Here,” Geralt replied, and planted his feet on the bed, knees up. Even that small movement jostled him inside, and the intensity of internal movement outside of Emhyr’s control got a sharp little breath out of him. 

“Brace your hands and lean back over my knees, then curl your hips forward," Geralt directed. "It’s easier to hit yourself just right like that.”

It seemed that Geralt had done this often enough to know. So with one lifted eyebrow to tell Geralt he was on thin ice if he was wrong, Emhyr complied. 

Even with the directions, it took more attempts than Emhyr liked in order for him to figure out how to lift himself just far enough off and angle himself just right to slide Geralt into the correct place inside him. But when Emhyr did...

The pleasure of this was always so sweet and gradual, unlike the sharp, fast enjoyment of his prick. The image that always sprang to mind was of the spread of honey on a flat surface. The first heavy dollop of gold dropped and the sensation of it spread out through him with mellifluous slowness. His cock leaked, traitorously responsive. He wished it would stop. It made it unavoidably clear to both Witchers how much he loved this. 

But Geralt only smiled, looking delighted, and dragged a finger through the droplets on his belly, lifting it to his mouth to taste. As if it were honey in truth, and not the slimy response of a body too invested in this. 

With that taste, Geralt’s face crumpled and he shuddered--and all at once Emhyr was much wetter inside. 

“Did you just--” he started to ask, and then bit off the rest of the sentence because it was very clear what Geralt had just done. 

“My turn!” Eskel crowed, and he surged upright, plucking Emhyr off Geralt with yet more shocking brusqueness. Emhyr barely had time to process the empty, slippery feeling that Geralt had left behind before Eskel maneuvered him onto all fours and moved up behind.

At which point, with one hand on Emhyr’s lower back and the other presumably holding himself at the right place, Eskel finally paused. 

“You, uh. You do want this, right?”

Emhyr couldn’t help snorting. “Do you truly imagine an Emperor is in the habit of tolerating things he doesn’t like?”

But Eskel only petted Emhyr’s back. “Well, yeah. Your job stinks and is dangerous. And that’s coming from me.”

That ghastly bit of understanding lingered in the air for a moment before Eskel went on, “So, can I--”

“Yes. Don’t make me wait,” Emhyr demanded, as much to change the subject as to satisfy his desire. 

Thankfully, without any further ado, Eskel slid into place. 

Which was when Emhyr discovered that yet again he had not quite understood the full gravity of this situation. Geralt clearly wasn’t bad at any of this, and was perfectly happy to please Emhyr this way, but Eskel was the real powerhouse. It soon became incandescently obvious that Eskel had spent serious effort during his extremely long life learning how to fuck with both skill and vigor, presumably on Geralt himself. Eskel leaned forward to brace himself on the headboard, and it was only two thrusts down the line before he set an athletic pace and seemed determined to use it to take Emhyr completely apart. 

Around the terrifying, battering pleasure of it, Emhyr just barely had the common sense left over not to let his knees slide out from under him and ruin the perfect angle. He bit his lip trying to keep in any sounds, but that quickly proved fruitless because Emhyr simply couldn’t get enough air with his mouth closed. All he could manage was to keep the gasping, shocky sounds he let out from getting any purchase in his throat to become outright moans. 

He had known he’d have to leave his prick out of it to get any meaningful amount of time into this evening with the Witchers. At least he’d gotten _that_ much right. Yet what he hadn’t understood was that if someone so much as _breathed_ on his cock right now he’d come. So when Geralt reached out one curious, almost lazy hand--he was stroking himself with the other--all it took was the touch of his thumb upon the slit and a gentle caress down the underside of the shaft to make Emhyr come completely apart. 

When he collected himself, Eskel had stilled behind him but was very clearly still hard. For several seconds Emhyr worked his jaw, swallowing to moisten his dry mouth. At last he managed, with far less gravitas than he wanted, “Go on, finish.”

Without the overpowering nearness of his own climax to distract him, this time Emhyr actually noticed the way their thighs slapped together. The noise was so base, so animal, that he could barely believe he was letting someone rut upon him this way--while they were staring directly down at his bare shoulders and spine all the time, no less. 

By the time both Eskel and Geralt had finished--almost in tandem, Emhyr could see them looking at each other across his body--Emhyr had gotten well and truly angry. Eskel collapsed face-down to one side of Emhyr, while Geralt lay still sprawled on the other, left hand again moving back and forth over Emhyr’s side. As if it were just natural to touch him that way. 

It was _unacceptable_ that two men with no political connections could, using only their cocks and a little oil and a little skill, cause the _Emperor_ to feel like _this._ How _dare_ they! How _dare_ they make him feel any of what they had just made him feel, or any of what he was _still_ feeling.

Because even now that the climax was past, the pleasure wasn’t. There was still the delicious, heavy lassitude of Emhyr’s body, tucked up between the Witchers with their legs all crisscrossed. There was still the dirtiness of their seed wet between his buttocks and his illicit enjoyment of that. There were also the delicate twinges of soreness he felt inside and knew he’d be feeling much more later. Emhyr’s heart thundered under his sternum, still frantic from the intensity of the crisis to which they had pushed him. It made a turmoil of his thoughts, as if his brain were tied to the galloping organ in his chest and was being pulped with every second that passed. 

And worse than all that, the true horror at last dawned on Emhyr: even assuming he lived long enough to do so, he would not now be _willing_ to forget this, to shut the memory of touch away yet again and his desire with it. He had done it the first time at thirteen, when his body had become suddenly alien and horrifying to him. He had done it several times during his relationship with Pavetta, most notably when he had realized that no matter how much destiny or love was involved, she would hate him when she discovered who he truly was. And he had done it a third and final time, much more completely, when she’d died. 

Then, he’d had more important things to focus upon than the loss of love and desire from his life. Enemies to destroy and an Empire to retake. But no lofty political goal awaited him anymore. Just the anticipation of death. 

With difficulty he extricated himself from their thoroughly besmirched bed. Both of them were still hard, which made it all too easy to imagine himself lying back down and letting them slowly work him to a second climax. But he told both himself and them that he would be intolerably sore if they did so, which was true. 

He cleaned himself off before he left their room. The evidence couldn’t make its way into his chambers.


	5. Chapter 5

The Duchess of Toussaint, Anna Henrietta, arrived in the capital. Since she knew Geralt and his connection to Ciri already, she requested a private dinner with them both. So off they went, leaving Eskel behind. 

With Geralt gone, Eskel expected that Emhyr would not subject himself to what was objectively the inferior Witcher of the two. Still, he didn’t mind the prospect of a quiet evening with one of the spotless volumes from the royal library, even if he wasn’t as obsessive a reader as Geralt. The library had plays, novels, and all sorts of things only available to the wealthy. In their childhood at Kaer Morhen, there had been a tiny selection of works of fiction brought back to the keep by bored Witchers for the winter months. Reading them had always felt like a treat, and it retained that air of specialness even now, all these years later. 

Eskel had curled up on the couch with a novel, comfortable and enjoying himself, only for Emhyr to turn up an hour after dinner. And not only did he turn up, he did so already scandalously half-dressed.

For a brief moment Eskel actually felt disappointed to have his reading interrupted. But then he realized that this meant Emhyr had come here _just for him._ Eskel was off the couch and kissing Emhyr within seconds.

As seemed to be Emhyr’s usual, he was a bossy brat in bed. But since what he seemed to want was to first suck Eskel’s cock and then get fucked for as long as Eskel wanted, Eskel couldn’t exactly complain. 

They were lying on their sides and Eskel had just started really putting his back into it when he briefly forgot himself. He was so lost in the delicious slick heat and soft skin that he just moved automatically, without thinking, in the ways he was used to behaving with Geralt. So Eskel bit down on the scarred neck in front of him and then landed a resounding smack on one shaking thigh. 

A half-second later he froze. This was not Geralt, this was the _Emperor of Nilfgaard,_ and what he’d just done technically counted as treason, as it was assault upon the royal personage. 

“Uh,” Eskel began, pushing himself up onto his elbow to look at Emhyr’s face. “Shit. Sorry. I’m just used to--”

Emhyr’s head swiveled to look up at him, eyes narrowed, hair mussed, and cheeks flushed dark. His lip bore bite marks from his own teeth. 

“Do it again,” Emhyr demanded, in a quiet, threatening voice. 

For several seconds Eskel stared at the other man, unsure whether to believe this. Dissatisfied with the delay, Emhyr both rolled his hips back onto Eskel’s cock and reached up to grab him roughly by the hair to pull him down. 

“I was perfectly clear and that was not a request.”

Eskel wondered if he’d be put to death for telling Geralt about this afterward. But he figured that was a problem for future Eskel to deal with when he wasn’t balls-deep. 

So Eskel obligingly rolled them over, pulling Emhyr onto all fours, and did what he often did with Geralt: Eskel buried himself to the hilt, left pleasingly stark handprints on pale skin, and let the tight squeeze that went with each blow keep him hard. The scars on the top half of Emhyr’s ass stood out starkly against the rosy color of the impacts. 

By the time Emhyr demanded they go back to fucking, it was obvious that he’d liked it. Not even Eskel could miss the scent of Emhyr’s arousal now. The man had dripped onto the bed, in fact, making a rather dramatic mess of the covers, and when Eskel reached around to make him come, it took only the barest caress. 

Afterward, sprawled out together, Eskel wondered who Emhyr would invite to his bed once they were gone. Lucky bastard, whoever it was. Emhyr became quite decent once you got him naked.

“Tell me,” Emhyr said, still breathless as he reached up to smooth his hair back into place. “How are Witchers coping with their looming obsolescence?”

Eskel swung his eyes over to Emhyr and hastily corrected his previous thought: Emhyr was decent as long as he was naked and _not talking._

But since he _was_ talking, Eskel considered both the man and the question.

“Not loving the prospect of your own retirement, huh,” he asked in return.

“It is doubtful there will be much of it to enjoy, given the number of my enemies. You already know this.”

At this Eskel snorted. “So was that first thing a real question, or did you just want to talk about your own feelings?”

Emhyr too seemed to consider both Eskel and his question. 

“Both, I suppose,” Emhyr admitted at last. “It is difficult to plan for a comfortable retirement knowing that it will likely be interrupted by poison or blade.”

Eskel nodded in acknowledgement. He appreciated how much even that small admission must have cost Emhyr. 

Perhaps embarrassed by his own vulnerability, even such a small example of it, Emhyr didn’t leave it there. He went on, “The numbers do not lie. For decades now, there have been fewer sightings of both Witchers and monsters. And Cirilla of all leaders will not allow her kingdom to be overrun by such creatures. She will follow my example, but better: she will arm human soldiers with silver swords and shields, but she will also see that they are given the specialized training and knowledge that even I could not access. Your job will soon be done by teams of Nilfgaardians, and when they finish the task you have begun, it will be done no longer.”

Snorting at this obvious feint, Eskel shook his head. Clearly Emhyr did not actually care about the end of Witchering, given how he had treated Letho. Emhyr was just afraid. But while Eskel found he didn’t mind answering a question or two for the sake of distraction and idle curiosity, he could not let himself forget that this was the White Flame, with many connections still. Emhyr might literally bend over for Witchers in private, but in the greater world he was no ally to them. The knowledge that Letho was still alive in Kaer Morhen sat uneasily in Eskel’s mind.

“I’ve known for longer than you’ve been alive that I’d be one of the last Witchers of my school,” he said slowly. “There’s a kind of relief in that. Mine has been a hard life and a long one. I’m glad there won’t be any other Witchers walking the Path after me.”

“I understand that Witchers too have little in the way of retirement,” Emhyr pushed. “Witchers are unwelcome in most places, and a Witcher who is old and infirm doubly so.”

“Like certain Emperors, you mean,” Eskel said, dropping the pretense that this was about him. “If you’re asking where’s safe to go for someone hated and viewed as dangerous, I can’t tell you that.”

He was not going to tell Emhyr that Letho was quietly rebuilding Kaer Morhen to be a safe place for Witchers, even those who might someday be unable to walk the Path. Right now Letho was starting the process by recruiting. 

When the Schools had been thriving, there had been numerous inhabitants in them who were not Witchers. People had been needed to grow food and cook it, clean the linens and the castle, look after the horses, milk and care for the goats, tan leather for Witcher armor, smith their swords, and perform the hundreds of other tasks required to sustain a keep of that size containing that many warriors.

There was a reason for the Witcher reputation for stealing wives, daughters, and mothers as well as children, and the rumor that their keeps were dens of every kind of sin and madness. Witchers had once taken in women shunned by their local villages; those considered ugly, or accused of witchcraft and chased out, or who refused to wed. Men, too; sodomites exiled by their folk, men born with deformities or thoughts simply too different from their peers. It still hurt to remember how Kaer Morhen had once been, bustling with humans who thought the sight of a Witcher was no strange thing. So many decades had passed since, but Eskel would never forget the names and faces. 

Mixed in among the mages, the younglings, and the human staff had been older Witchers who had lost legs or arms or had other injuries too severe to allow them walk the Path any longer. There had not been many; even then it had been rare for a Witcher to die in his bed rather than on the Path. But there had been a few, and they had helped train the boys. 

Letho would not be creating new Witchers, at least not in the way Eskel was a Witcher. That had been the condition set by Lambert for allowing Letho to use Kaer Morhen: _no more Trials._ Any new Witchers from Kaer Morhen would be like Leo and Ciri, trained but not Trialed. Able to blend in with humans if they chose, able to have families still, not having been forced to watch most of their siblings die horrible deaths. 

“Doesn’t that make you afraid?” Emhyr asked, so Eskel rolled over, stroking a hand down Emhyr’s belly. "Knowing that you're the last of your kind."

“Yeah,” Eskel admitted. “But I probably won’t live till then either. I just don’t wanna outlive Geralt again. That’s all I care about.” When Eskel thought about those awful years when Geralt had been gone, a question occurred to him. “What is it you want to make sure to do before you die?”

“Is that an offer to help me cross a few items off the list?” Emhyr asked, avoiding the question.

In this position, on his back with his soft cock lying spent against one hip and his cheeks still pink, the man could not quite manage to look regal. Eskel liked that. Smiling at him and playing along, Eskel shuffled up close and twined their legs together before leaning down to press a brief kiss to Emhyr’s sour and unfriendly mouth. Emhyr allowed it, which was still a surprise. 

“Sure. I’ve been there. When I thought Geralt was dead, I went out and did every crazy, dangerous thing I could think of. Snorted fisstech with a succubus, called the Law of Surprise every occasion I could just to see what would happen, took every contract no matter how dangerous, and spent money like I thought it would burn my pockets if I kept it. Had a lot of horrible things happen to me during that time--but a lot of amazing ones too. So,” Eskel sweetened what he was about to ask with another lingering kiss, “what is it an Emperor wants to make sure he does before he dies?”

“A question that bears some thought,” Emhyr said, gaze now fixed on Eskel’s mouth. “In the meantime, I think I would like to see how much you can please me even if I cannot get hard again tonight.”

This got a smirk out of Eskel. Really he should have anticipated that Emhyr would not answer that question. But it wasn’t as if he minded this response. 

“Since not having erections is the opposite of the problem Witchers usually have, you’ll have to be as demanding and specific as possible to make sure I’m doing what you want. Which seems like a talent of yours.”

Emhyr’s response was to lift one eyebrow and push Eskel down the bed, and when Eskel obligingly laid himself out between Emhyr’s thighs, to grant Eskel a small smile. 

“Let us start by seeing what your mouth feels like when I am soft.”

**

The Duchess had only invited Ciri and Geralt himself, but Ciri brought Yennefer because it was the soon-to-be-Empress’s prerogative to do what she wanted, at least in some ways. 

Some part of Geralt was still flinchy with Yen, waiting for her fury and punishment, but truth be told it had been a relief for both of them to be rid of the djinn’s spell. The dinner itself was unremarkable, like so many Geralt had been to recently, but it afforded him a chance to talk to Yen. 

“So, you and Eskel and Emhyr,” she said to him, watching with pride as Ciri spoke quietly with the Duchess. “How is that going?”

Geralt wanted to be angry that Yen might have reached into his mind again, seeing that he wanted to talk to her about it. But maybe she hadn’t done that. The situation with the Emperor had been obvious enough during the dance the other night that maybe there was no need for mindreading. 

“I don’t know,” Geralt said. 

“Oh, you know that’s not true,” Yen said, thus proving she was, in fact, reading his mind. 

_Then why bother to ask me at all?_ Geralt thought at her, and she smiled. 

Geralt forced himself to relax. This was the court--because of the danger of this place, Yen was reading _everyone_ all the time now. Geralt knew he could only imagine how awful it had to be. Maybe it was a relief for her to look into the mind of someone familiar and unthreatening. It just hurt that she felt the need to do it with him, too. 

Her expression didn’t change, but she reached out and lay a hand on his arm. 

“So, Emhyr,” she prompted gently. 

“I worry...” Geralt started to say. He didn’t want to say it out loud to her as well, but maybe it was important that he fully admit it. “I worry I will fall in love with him. That I won’t be able to help it, whatever else I think of him.”

“I could stop you,” Yen offered, and though at these words Geralt stiffened. Her expression stayed soft and earnest and her tone was low. “I could reach into your mind and keep you from doing it. Do you want that?”

The idea of it disgusted Geralt, but...but what she was _really_ offering him was the freedom of pleasure. The freedom to enjoy this without a consequence he did not wish. 

“No,” he told her after a moment of consideration. “I worry Eskel will, too. And I don’t want him going where I can’t follow. Not anymore.” He snorted, thinking about it. “Thanks to Emhyr and Ciri, we have the money to travel the Path side by side for a long while.”

“And if Emhyr stays alive, he would have the money to support both of you in any style you wished,” Yennefer pushed. “Ciri would too, you know. She would not want either of you suffering.”

Geralt shook his head again. “That isn’t how a Witcher is meant to live.”

“Isn’t it?” Yen asked. “I think any other idiot would conclude that after more than seventy years of sacrifice and hard life, he had earned something better. But if you desire suffering for its own sake, I shan't trouble myself to convince you otherwise.”

A smile stole onto Geralt’s face at this. He couldn’t help it. This was, in Yen’s backwards way, very sweet of her--she was telling him that she thought he deserved comfort and care. So she’d forgiven him for the djinn, perhaps. That was a relief. 

“You get to choose either way,” Yen went on. “Even if you do fall in love. You two can both choose not to be with him.”

It was both a necessary reminder and a very pointed jab. _You can choose,_ she was saying, _as I was not able to do with you for so long._

“You chose not to be with me often enough even despite the spell,” Geralt told her, because that was also true. “I’ve had that choice shown to me enough to understand it by now.”

“Then actually believe it for yourself,” she told him. “Act as if you are something more than a maple seed buffeted by the breeze, blown wherever you land. Destiny has acted upon you--upon both of us. But this isn’t that.”

He laughed. She was right. She so often was. 

“On the subject of current lovers, how are things with you and Triss?” he asked. 

She smiled a shark’s smile. 

“More beautiful than anything a man could imagine.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional content warning for brief mention of physical child abuse in this chapter. Warning also for bad treatment of a prisoner - it's in keeping with things that happen in canon, but it's still not nice.

The next evening, Geralt and Eskel stood beside Emhyr and Ciri outside another noble’s house for another dinner. Geralt, looking Eskel over with a sense of pride, realized that Eskel was gaining weight. So few Witchers ever got to do so that seeing him have the privilege, even if it was only temporary before they returned to the Path, brought Geralt a special pleasure. The first evidence of a double chin was showing up and it made Geralt want to nuzzle his face under there.

Vague fantasies about keeping them both well-fed enough that neither of them lost weight when they left the capital filled Geralt’s mind as he stared at his fellow Witcher. So when a crossbow bolt came from above, it was pure reflex to knock the bolt out of the air before it sank into Emhyr’s eye. Geralt’s knuckles were stinging before he even realized what he’d done. 

Eskel’s face whipped around at the sound. He had a fireball aimed where the bolt had come from and a Quen shield around all four of them before another second had passed.

Another bolt shattered when it touched the Quen. A second after that, someone screamed from the rooftop as the fireball reached them. A burning figure rolled off the tiles and landed on the street below with a sickening thud. Eskel quenched the flames with a gesture.

Which was when Geralt realized that they had just foiled an assassination attempt in public. 

“Well, shit,” Geralt grumbled, just as Emhyr said, “Well, this evening has taken a turn.”

Ciri vanished from the bubble of the Quen, and a moment later Geralt saw her on a rooftop nearby. A moment after that she appeared somewhere else and another would-be assassin shrieked as she grabbed him and teleported him away. On the carriage, the footmen and drivers and guards were panicking.

Eskel ushered Emhyr back into the carriage and banged on the roof. “Go! Just go!” he shouted at the driver.

Torn between wanting to stay and search the area for clues and wanting to go with the other two, Geralt waited till the last minute to jump on the back of the carriage with the footmen. They stared at him in horror as he climbed up onto the roof of the carriage. 

He scanned the roofs of the passing houses the whole way back to the Palace but saw no one else. They got Emhyr back inside without further incident, at which point Ciri turned up. An armed escort brought the three of them to Ciri--she had brought the second would-be assassin back to the Palace and given him to the guards. 

Despite the man’s obvious terror of Ciri, he refused to speak at all, even when the captain of the guard threatened him with torture. When Emhyr ordered the man stripped and taken away, the guards began to comply at once, but then one of them stopped and glanced over at Ciri. She rolled her eyes. 

“I’ve seen plenty of naked men already,” she stated, which caused one of the men to flush bright red while another one suppressed a smile. Emhyr just looked long-suffering, but he gestured for the guards to continue. 

Within a few moments all of the man’s effects were laid out along one of the side-tables of Emhyr’s receiving room. Emhyr stood to examine the items, just in case any of them contained some obvious crest or other clue, Geralt assumed. 

He fought with himself as he watched this occur. He should not be involved in this, he knew. This was beyond his purpose, outside of the Witcher creed. But then, he’d helped kill Radovid, so what did his training even _matter_ anymore? While helping Emhyr had been the last thing on Geralt's mind when he'd assisted with the assassination, it had greatly aided Emhyr’s conquest of the North. Geralt had _already_ shattered his neutrality. And tonight he had already foiled another assassination without thinking, further involving himself with the business of politics. So what did it matter if he did it again?

Vesemir would have said it mattered a great deal, and that stopping a little too late was better than not stopping at all. But Vesemir was dead and if Letho kept his promise, he would make a safe place for Witchers to go no matter what they had done. 

“Wait,” Geralt said before the guards could take the assassin away. The guards looked to Emhyr and Ciri for approval, and when Emhyr nodded, they held the man in place for Geralt’s inspection. Emhyr’s gaze sat heavy on Geralt as he moved in close to the now-bare assassin. 

He had no identifying tattoos, and while he had a few scars, they could have been from anything. Breaking his arm as a child, falling off a horse, Geralt could not tell. They were not the marks of monsters, but that was all he could say with any certainty.

The man’s face twitched, clearly frightened but trying to hide it, as Geralt leaned in close to his bare body. Geralt was taller than the assassin by several inches, and far more heavily muscled. 

“He had meat for supper,” Geralt observed, inhaling as the man exhaled. “Beef, cooked with expensive herbs. So either they paid him first and he’s spent some of it already, or he has friends with wealth.”

“Or he is from a wealthy family himself,” Emhyr said thoughtfully, eyes still fixed on Geralt himself. 

The assassin tried to pull away but the guards held him still for Geralt as he leaned closer still. 

“Traces of expensive perfume behind his ears, too. He’s tried to wash it off but he did a poor job. Probably too faint for me to pick up a trail on the rooftops, but enough for me to know this isn’t a pauper’s scent. He used fine soap, too.” 

The man’s sweat was now so acrid that it almost disguised the traces of something on his hands. Geralt bent closer to get a better noseful. 

“He was handling flowers earlier today, after bathing. There’s traces of pollen on his hands.”

Geralt didn’t want to use Axiii in front of these people. Bad enough to display his ability to sniff things out like a prized wolfhound, that made people uncomfortable enough with his inhumanity. When he glanced at the guards, they were indeed looking at him with mixed disgust and fascination. 

But perfume and pollen and meat might not be useful at all, and the relevant knowledge might well be waiting inside this man’s mind like ripe fruit dangling at eye height, if only Geralt reached out his hand to grasp it. And what if this attempt were not restricted solely to Emhyr, but had later aims for Ciri?

With a sigh, Geralt raised his hand. At that moment, however, Eskel stood up. 

Geralt paused, watching him. For a moment Eskel merely glared at the ground, and Geralt wondered if his rising had been unrelated to the assassin. But then Eskel met Geralt’s eyes and nodded. 

“Let me. You were never as good at this,” Eskel sighed. With a gesture, he cast Axii, and the man instantly relaxed, posture softening. 

“Who hired you?” Eskel asked, tone polite. 

“I don’t know his name. My mother just said that he’s a distant relative of ours. He promised that once his fortunes changed with the Emperor’s death, he’d elevate us alongside him.”

Around him, the guards stirred, glancing at each other. Emhyr sat up in his seat, gaze now intent on Eskel. 

“What is your name, and how did this man pay you?” Eskel asked. 

“Hanegaard aep Craev,” the assassin answered, swaying a little. He looked half asleep. Geralt, who had been one of the only people who would practice the Signs with Eskel in their childhood, remembered that feeling from their teenage years. Like that state between waking and dreaming, when the mind sometimes supplied unexpected ideas--or allowed unwanted truths. “But I’d have done it for myself even without the pay. Ardal aep Dahy was a friend of mine--better father to me than my real one ever was. Even before I was offered money, I was thinking of doing it for myself.”

Emhyr went very still. He hardly even appeared to be breathing, eyes unblinking as he stared at Eskel. 

“And how did you receive this money and this request?” Eskel insisted, glancing over at Emhyr. 

“I brought flowers to Ardal’s grave. _Deithvann,_ the purple ones. They were his favorite when he was alive. The money and instructions had been left for me there.”

“And the other assassin--tell me about them.”

“I do not know his name,” Hanegaard said. “I was only there as insurance--if he missed his shot, I was to finish the job.”

“Did he have any distinguishing traits?” Eskel inquired.

“I never met him until tonight. But from what I could see, he had blond hair.”

Eskel looked over at Emhyr then. “Anything else you want me to ask?”

After a long silence in which Emhyr was maybe thinking about it or maybe just ogling Eskel, Emhyr at last shook his head.

“Not now, at least. You have already given me much.”

The guards wrapped the would-be assassin in a cloak and led him away. 

**

The bluster and fuss lasted for another couple hours. Geralt’s dreams of uninvolvement burned away like paper to Igni. 

By the time they retreated to their rooms, both Witchers were cranky and hungry, and used the bell pull to call for dinner. They were in the middle of eating it when Emhyr himself appeared. 

“Dinner can wait,” he informed them. “I’m going to fuck both of you, and I don’t care which of you starts or finishes it.”

“Thanks?” Eskel said, clearly perplexed. Then he sobered. “Or, wait, no--is this some sort of attempt to pay us back? Because I’m not interested if so. I don’t want sex you think you owe me.”

At this Emhyr sighed, removing his chain of office and starting upon the clasps of his robes. “One thanks a Witcher with money, obviously,” Emhyr informed them. “That will happen on the morrow. No, _this_ is solely because it will feel good.”

The idea of forgetting everything else that had happened tonight between Emhyr’s legs had undeniable appeal. But all of a sudden Geralt found himself angry--at himself for doing what he’d done and at Emhyr for being the kind of man for whom that sort of thing was necessary. Also that Emhyr would walk in here and _assume_ that they would both be available and willing without even bothering to ask. The fact that Witcher libido generally made that true didn’t make it right for it to go unquestioned.

“If this is just casual, we shouldn’t have done what we did with the prisoner,” Geralt said before he could convince himself not to. The eyes of both other men in the room swung over to him, Emhyr’s narrowed and Eskel’s with his brows raised in surprise. “And if it’s not casual, then what is this? What is happening between us?”

A pair of silent seconds passed, in which Emhyr stopped unfastening his cuffs and fixed a piercing stare on Geralt. Then with a long-suffering sigh, Emhyr folded his hands behind his back. 

As soon as he did it, Geralt knew whatever he said next would be guarded bullshit that had nothing to do with the way Emhyr’s heartbeat was quickening. 

“If you are distressed by what you chose to do, then simply do not repeat it,” Emhyr said coldly. “You’ll note that I did not force you to do anything, nor even request it of you. You each volunteered.”

Eskel snorted, shaking his head, and that expressed Geralt’s feelings on the matter too.

“Yes, we volunteered,” Eskel said. “Most people would take that as a sign that we were willing to act for the sake of something we found important.”

Rising from his seat, Geralt crossed to Emhyr. Close enough to touch, if he wanted. Close enough to get a full reading of his scent, or as full a reading as Emhyr’s dense garb afforded. But Emhyr’s scent was just what it always was: a layer of perfume and rich fabric not quite hiding the scents of human stress and arousal. Exactly what he normally smelled of when around the two of them. 

“I think you like that we don’t treat you like a holy relic,” Geralt said. “To us you’re not the White Flame. You’re just a man who likes to touch and be touched. Now stop trying to act as if you are the Emperor who just so happens to be standing in our bedroom, and _start_ acting like a man who’s slept with us! People who sleep with each other talk about what the hell is going on between them, especially in situations like this!”

Those pale brown eyes searched Geralt’s face, traveling over each part of it in turn. 

“When I first came to your chambers, I was certain you wanted political favors of me. I find myself wondering now if I wasn’t right the first time. Otherwise, why would you complicate this?”

This got another derisive snort out of Eskel. 

“Complicate--fucking hell. Really, Emhyr? I _killed_ a man for you tonight and interrogated another, and _that’s_ where you’re going to try to take this? You’re going to try to turn this around on us and accuse of _us_ of using _you?”_ He stood, shaking his head, and walked over to the window. This one had a lovely view of the manicured forest that bordered the palace grounds. Eskel drummed his fingertips on the windowpane for a moment before swinging back around. 

Normally Geralt no longer thought that the scars made Eskel look angry. He’d gotten used to mentally compensating for the twisted lip. But now, Geralt wondered if Emhyr knew to compensate for the scarring yet. The jagged marks made Eskel look furious when Geralt thought his real feeling was probably closer to disappointment. 

“I guess it’s on me for being surprised,” Eskel sighed. “How many people have you been with in any real way? Just Pavetta, I’ll bet, and you probably lied to her about everything important the whole time you were together, just like Ciri said. I doubt you’ve even fucked anyone beyond her and us, have you?”

At this Geralt stared--first at Eskel and then at Emhyr, whose expression remained studiously immobile and whose posture had not changed. 

Suddenly so much made sense. Geralt had known that Emhyr was inexperienced with men, but he hadn’t quite thought through exactly how _complete_ Emhyr's inexperience might be even beyond just sex. Pavetta had been fifteen when Emhyr had married her--too young to have any of the skills one needed in a real relationship. And if there had been no one after her...

Among Witchers Geralt and Eskel were truly exceptional. They had fallen in love young and acknowledged it as love even despite being trained to believe such a thing was impossible. As a result, they had vastly more experience with the workings of romantic relationships than most of their peers. The decades of messy trial and error Geralt had gone through with Eskel had given him the hard-won knowledge and skills he had needed to love Yennefer. He shuddered to think how much worse things could have been between them without that. 

Geralt remembered exactly how patient he’d had to be with Yennefer--how patient he _still_ had to be with her. She was older than him and could read minds, but that had mostly meant she’d seen the worst in everyone for a very long time. She had never had the benefit of a safe relationship in which to learn the skills required to allow vulnerability without fear. 

And now it seemed as if Emhyr had the same problem. The gravitas Emhyr projected was such that Geralt sometimes forgot that he was half Geralt’s age. Now, that felt more obvious than ever. In the context of having little if any experience in navigating moments like this, Emhyr’s reticence made sense. 

So Geralt took a deep breath, steeling himself for this. 

“I don’t know yet what I feel for you,” he admitted, because that was what had worked with Yen. Seeing the angry turmoil of his thoughts during their fights had of course done nothing to soothe her. What _had_ worked was him humbling himself first with his own display of vulnerability, dredging up what he felt _under_ the anger and self-righteousness and showing her he could speak from that. “If you were going to stay on the throne, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation. I couldn’t tolerate committing myself to the White Flame, no matter who he was in private. But soon, you won’t be that anymore. That means there’s room in your life for you to be something else. Something new. Maybe someone with lovers who are more than just casual.”

Nothing visible softened in Emhyr in response to this. But when Geralt reached out, wrapping one hand around Emhyr’s elbow and tugging at it gently, after a moment of silent resistance Emhyr allowed his arm to be pulled around. Emhyr’s hand was sweaty and shaking and that was its own silent admission. 

It occurred to Geralt then that even Eskel might have no experience with this--with coaxing an unwilling partner, especially one used to their own power, into honesty. Eskel had loved other men over the years, but they had always been few and far between, especially after the scarring on his face. Geralt glanced over at Eskel and found him watching the two of them with a look of something like longing. 

“You came here tonight for a reason, and I don’t think it was just about sex,” Geralt prompted. “We stood up for you. We made a gesture--Eskel especially.”

Emhyr’s lips pursed, and some of his hard unreadability faded a little. Eskel moved closer, hesitant and clearly uncertain of how close was too close. 

“It has been all of a week that we have been intimate,” Emhyr protested at last. “And I would hope that none of us is the sort of fool to believe that a few dalliances make a great romance. People often sleep with those they care for but little, and trust even less.”

“You don’t do that, though,” Eskel remarked, now staring pointedly at Emhyr. “It really is only three people you’ve ever slept with, isn’t it? Ciri’s mother, and us.”

Emhyr’s eyes lifted to Eskel’s, narrowed and defensive again. “I did not come here to have you make a mockery of me.”

“I’m not doing that,” Eskel told him bluntly. “But I can’t help but think it means _something_ that you chose us, and that you came here tonight.”

Geralt laced his fingers together with Emhyr’s damp ones, which grasped him tight. It was perhaps a gesture of needing reassurance, or perhaps just a way to conceal the shaking. 

“That is...not an inaccurate assumption,” Emhyr confessed at last, but upon saying it, his expression grew even more sober. “If you seek flowery proclamations, however, then you must know I have little interest in providing them.” 

A laugh burst out of Eskel. “I’d wonder whether you’d been replaced by a doppler if you tried. We don’t need that. But if we’re allying ourselves to you, doing things we would not do for just anyone, then we--” He cut off, glancing over at Geralt. _“I_ need to know it’s not for someone who will lose interest when my prick stops being so novel.”

This finally got a response from Emhyr. He nodded, brow furrowing as he seemed to consider this. 

“There are a great many qualities I find fascinating in you both,” he sighed. “And a great many unknowns I find difficult to predict. You are correct in thinking that part of my motivation in coming here tonight was a response to your...gesture. I think most people would find such a gesture moving.”

The careful language of this tickled something in the back of Geralt’s mind, and Geralt, used to having his life depend upon such intuitions, spent a moment thinking about it. 

Just as Eskel started to move toward Emhyr, perhaps meaning to break the tension with a kiss, sudden realization came to Geralt. 

“Oh shit,” he swore, stopping both other men in their tracks. “You owe me another life debt--you owe _both_ of us a life debt. Is _that_ part of what’s going on here? You trying to distract us from collecting on that until you stop being Emperor?”

From the way Emhyr’s nostrils flared and he inhaled sharply, Geralt knew he’d discovered the truth. 

But he only shook his head, feeling fond. This was so familiar from his hears with Yen--a dramatic manipulation to conceal the fear of something Geralt would never do anyway.

“I didn’t want anything from you the first time,” Geralt reminded Emhyr gently. “What makes you think I’d ask for something absurd now?”

But Eskel shocked them both when he interjected, “I know exactly what I want.”

Witcher and Emperor stared at Eskel. 

“Name your price,” Emhyr growled, now clearly furious. Geralt could not imagine what Eskel thought he was doing--to Emhyr this would seem to prove his every fear correct. 

But Eskel held Emhyr’s furious stare, apparently unmoved. 

“The other day, you and I had a conversation about how Witchers, like Emperors, have very little waiting for them in terms of retirement.”

Geralt blinked. 

“There is a Witcher who is trying to build a safe place for Witchers in the ruins of Kaer Morhen,” Eskel went on, and Geralt’s eyes went wide as he realized exactly what Eskel was doing. “As payment for your life debt, you will swear to never interfere in that cause in any way. Not through your own action nor through incitement of your allies. Swear it.”

Emhyr straightened himself to his full height. “If this will endanger Cirilla’s rule in some way--”

But Eskel did not back down. “You ought to know I have no interest in threatening Ciri or her rule. Nor does this Witcher. I have named what I want from you for saving your life. Will you swear to it?”

For several bitter, tense moments silence reigned. Then Emhyr gritted out, “I so swear. Now tell me why you concealed this from me, and why you made me swear to this.”

Standing with his hands on his hips, Eskel regarded Emhyr. 

“I didn’t save your life so I could do this, I want that clear,” Eskel stated. “But I hid it from you because you have made yourself untrustworthy to Witchers. And if we’re talking about what this thing between us _is_ if it’s not just sex--and it’s _not_ just sex if I’m using Witcher skills to save your ass--then we have to address that too. You have to be safe for Witchers if you're going to get the benefit of our closeness.”

Emhyr’s mouth twisted into a furious shape. “The Witcher in Kaer Morhen is Letho of Gulet,” he concluded. When neither of the Witchers in the room denied this, he shook his head, moving away from both of them and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I suppose it should not surprise me to be given evidence that you have greater loyalty to your own kind than to me. Does Cirilla know too?”

“Yes,” Geralt answered. “I saved Letho from your assassins myself. To repay the debt he owed me, he fought with us to protect Ciri from the Wild Hunt.”

For several seconds, the mood in the room hung by the slimmest thread as Emhyr appeared to consider this. Then he rounded on Geralt. 

“And you?” he demanded. “Last time you saved my life you claimed my _daughter_ from me. By right you can again ask me for anything that is worth my life to me. Yet I ask that _this_ time you exercise a modicum of sense and do not again call for the Law of Surprise.”

This tore a wild laugh out of Geralt. “No! Fuck no. Whatever you don’t yet know you have, I don’t want it. Destiny has already played enough tricks on the three of us.”

So he thought it over carefully for a minute. 

“A new horse, when my current horse dies or goes lame or gets too old,” he said at last. “A real warhorse, bred and trained for the purpose. And if she’s still alive when I need a new horse, I want stabling and care for my horse Roach until it’s her time.”

Emhyr blinked, seemingly surprised by this reasonable request, and then nodded. 

“Consider it done. Tomorrow I will formally gift the two of you a sum of money, since I must publicly acknowledge what you did. And when you request it, you will have the finest warhorse the house of Emreis can acquire.”

“And stabling for an old, crotchety Roach,” Geralt insisted, still half-smiling and trying to lighten the mood. “That’s no small task either. She bites.”

This got the barest hint of a smile from Emhyr. But then he glanced between the two Witchers and walked back to the secret door. 

“I find I have had enough amorous adventures for one evening,” he said.

“Emhyr--” Eskel began to say, but Emhyr cut him off with a shake of his head.

“No. Perhaps you are right that you are owed some honesty from me. But this has been enough. You have named your terms and I have accepted. Now I have a conspiracy to ferret out.”

With that he left. 

**

Collapsing back into his chair, Eskel poked at the remains of his dinner. None of this, absolutely _none_ of this was what he had intended to do today. None of this was what he had _wanted_ to do today. But now it was done.

“Think he’ll come back?” Geralt asked as he too sank down into his seat. 

Eskel shrugged. “Doubt it. But if not, at least everybody ended up with something they didn’t have before.”

Within himself, Eskel quietly put away the idea of having any other lover beyond Geralt. Eskel also put away all the feelings that had gone with that idea: the hope, the excitement, the relief that maybe the choices that had ruined his face hadn’t ruined the possibility of any other lover ever wanting him. It had been nice to dream, but he was used to knowing his dreams were foolish. 

Several days passed in the palace in a whirlwind of activity. The thread that Eskel had given to Emhyr, once pulled, unraveled the whole plot. The revelation of one conspirator turned up another and another in a messy jumble. 

For Eskel, what it mostly meant was that they did not have to attend any further boring, horrible dinner parties before the wedding and coronation, and that Ciri nearly made herself sick with fretting.

She spent a great deal of time in private with Geralt and Eskel. 

“Is this what it’s going to be like to be Empress?” she asked over and over again. “Is this the rest of my life?”

Neither Witcher knew how to comfort her about this. They both remembered moments in their own youth when they had asked the same question about being a Witcher. When faced with the violence and loneliness of the Path, it was difficult not to question what all their suffering had all been _for,_ and if any of it had been worth it. Hell, Eskel _still_ sometimes wondered if any of this business of being alive was worth it. But the answer had always been that dying would hurt Geralt, as Geralt’s own death had hurt Eskel, so the only other choice was to stay alive. 

Eskel didn’t say any of that to Ciri, though. He just let Geralt sit with her and hold her hand.

The day before the wedding revealed that the father of Ciri’s fiancé had been one of the ringleaders of the assassination attempt--and that he had intended to go for Ciri after the wedding. 

All Eskel could think was that the citizens of the empire, hearing all this at a safe distance, must be having a grand time. To them, getting an Empress and White Flame who executed her consort’s father the day before her marriage made for great drama and added to her mythos. Given that the state religion was built to paint whoever was on the throne as something like a deity anyway, and given that Ciri already had powers that made her rather like a goddess, Eskel hoped that the people would be happy, at least. She was furious about the intended attempt on her life and fully willing to execute Lord Voorhis, but she was otherwise a kind young woman. She would make a good leader.

Eskel had been vaguely wondering how Morvran himself was handling all this, when the night before the wedding, Ciri dragged Morvran into the bedroom Eskel shared with Geralt. 

“Use Axii on him,” she begged Geralt, her eyes wild. “Please. I’m sorry, I don’t want to ask this of you, I shouldn't ask this of you, but I can’t--I _can’t_ marry him if I don’t know.”

The moment the mages had picked Geralt for a second Trials of the Grasses, Eskel had known that either Geralt was touched by Destiny or Eskel would lead a lonely life without him. When Geralt had come back with the roots of his hair white and his skin all bleached pale and pink, Eskel had known it was Destiny. He hadn’t known at the time that it would eventually result in Eskel sighing as he resigned himself to using Axii the future prince-consort of the Empire. But Geralt’s troubles were Eskel’s troubles, and Ciri was Geralt’s daughter, and Eskel was better at Signs. 

Morvran himself did not look pleased at the idea of having his mind invaded by some Witcher’s magic, but nor was he fighting Ciri about it, which seemed like a mark in his favor. Instead, he looked at Ciri with rather more tenderness than Eskel would have expected and said, “I understand. If I thought _your_ father wanted me dead and there was something _you_ could do for me to prove that I would have a safe life by your side, I would ask it of you, too.”

Ciri flushed pink and fiddled with her clothes in response to this. 

So when Eskel stood up to do this, he told Morvran bluntly, “This won’t hurt you and it won’t change you for more than a few minutes. You have my promise.”

Morvran nodded back at him. So with the pull of power and a gesture, Eskel cast the Sign. 

Morvran’s gaze unfocused and his posture slumped. 

“Were you aware of your father’s plan to have first Emhyr and then Ciri killed?” Eskel asked. 

“No, though I am not surprised to learn that this was his intent,” Morvran admitted. “He has never been a good man.”

Eskel exchanged a speaking glance with Geralt at this. Eskel supposed that the kind of family who made a young man vastly prefer horses over people did not predispose anyone to missing a parent who met the headsman’s axe. 

“Are you in any way involved with any plan to harm Ciri?” Eskel asked. 

“I think my father wanted me to be,” Morvran replied, staring into the distance. “He asked me months ago if I was willing to do anything for the Empire. It is the sort of question he asks to test me. When I was small, if I answered in a way he didn’t like, he would have one of his men beat me bloody. But he no longer quite dares to beat a General, so I told him I was willing to do anything for my horses, not the Empire. He didn’t ask again after that, so he must have decided I couldn't be trusted.”

Ciri stared unhappily at Morvran. 

“Do you intend to harm Ciri after you are married to her?” Eskel asked. And with a twitch of will, he put real force behind this question. 

At this, Morvran looked sad. “We will have to consummate the marriage tomorrow night. They will take the sheets as proof, so there must be some evidence on them of the consummation. But I know she doesn’t wish to marry me. I fear that there is no option for our wedding night which she will view as anything other than a bitter duty to her country, and I think that is a harm.”

All three of the other people in the room looked at the young man in some surprise. 

“Are you sure it’s working?” Ciri asked. 

Eskel nodded. He did not doubt his own powers--if that was Morvran’s answer while under an Axii with this much force behind it, then that was the truth. 

“Well I’ll explain how to have sex with me in a way I like, then, and that’ll be fine,” Ciri said, which made Geralt grimace and Eskel let out a little huff of laughter. “But if they’re expecting blood on the sheets, some part of him can be the virgin sacrifice.”

Geralt covered his face with his hand and let out a long-suffering sigh. 

When Eskel let Morvran out of the spell, he blinked owlishly several times, sneezed, and then appeared to come to his senses. 

“Oh, that’s strange,” he said. He cast a worried look at Eskel and Geralt, but Ciri dragged him away and out of the room a moment later. Clearly they had a lot to talk about.

“At least that seems to be going well,” Geralt sighed.

Eskel knew exactly what he meant. Tomorrow’s wedding and coronation hung over them all: Ciri would irrevocably become the Empress and the White Flame, the leader of most of the known world and the head of one of the largest religions. And Emhyr hadn’t spoken to them in days. 

Crossing the room to Geralt, Eskel buried his nose in Geralt’s hair and breathed in the comforting skin-smell of him.

It would be fine, Eskel told himself. There had been so many rejections over the years (from men he thought had wanted him, from people he was trying to pay for their services, even from cats) that one more didn’t matter. 

Maybe it was his fault anyway. He had suddenly needed to know that Emhyr was a safe person to want--safe for not just himself but for Letho and Kaer Morhen and all the other Witchers. Maybe believing there could have been any other way for this to end had always been foolish. 

At least Geralt still smelled warm and alive. At least for now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: this is the chapter where we get the most explicit picture of Emhyr's past with Pavetta. Please mind your own needs in choosing to read this. 
> 
> This chapter also contains one of the characters affectionately/jokingly using a somewhat offensive historical slang term for gay men to refer to both himself and his partner.

Watching Lord Voorhis be led away in shackles evoked a distant kind of satisfaction in Emhyr. But it felt like trying to catch a beam of sunlight; if he sat still in just the right place it would warm him a little, but any attempt to grasp it or gain any real comfort from it was impossible. 

Lord Voorhis and several more of the aep Dahys would be executed, and a host of other involved parties would be exiled over the Blue Mountains. Further threats to his life discovered, prevented, and destroyed. 

But that just meant more enraged family members, more grudges held, more plots to anticipate. And the longer he was off the throne, the fewer allies he would have or be able to make, as he would no longer have the power to offer the kinds of rewards he once had. 

With Cirilla’s aid, he had at last begun arrangements for his retirement: his most trusted agents had been sent separately, without knowledge of the others, to acquire a set of five small households in Toussaint, Cintra, Nazair, Kaedwen, and Verden. More would be added with time. He would have a different assumed name for each of them, and a sixth estate along the northern Nilfgaardian border that would be the official residence of Emhyr var Emreis. 

The thought that kept rising in his mind was that having wide-ranging estates which he moved between would naturally lend itself to bringing the Witchers with him. They would not like to be pinned down in one place, he thought. And take a skilled tradesman away from his trade for long enough and he would grow bored and stifled, as Eskel and Geralt clearly were in court. 

It was a ridiculous fantasy, Emhyr told himself. They were both painfully recognizable, and Geralt himself was famous in his own right. Emhyr had already shown his hand too much by displaying any sort of public favor toward them; it would destroy the anonymity of his residences to have two such recognizable Witchers visiting him everywhere he went. 

And yet he thought about it anyway. Incessantly and intrusively. He thought about it when he woke and washed and shaved himself and remembered the startled and pleased reaction the Witchers had had to his body. He thought about it as he signed paperwork and realized how stultifying and exhausting the Witchers would find such work. He thought about it when Mererid checked the fit of his ceremonial robes one final time before the coronation, and Emhyr remembered the extremely fine clothes the royal tailors had created for Cirilla’s adoptive father and...uncle? The terminology for what Eskel was to her grew confusing and difficult, but the point was that the tailors had been very excited to have two such tall and muscular bodies to flatter with their creations. Emhyr too found himself not unmoved by the prospect.

Emhyr thought about the Witchers during the wedding and coronation, when he ceased to be the White Flame and passed the mantle to Cirilla. He remembered what Geralt had said: _I couldn’t tolerate committing myself to the White Flame, no matter who he was in private. But soon, you won’t be that anymore. That means there’s room in your life for you to be something else. Something new. Maybe someone with lovers who are more than just casual._

A desperate mind played tricks on itself. Emhyr knew that his fixation was probably just that, a mind trying to find some reward to move toward rather than feeling the fury of defeat. 

But he stood in the noonday sun, and lit the ceremonial fires, and passed the spiritual and political rule of Nilfgaard to Cirilla. Ciri, as Geralt and Eskel called her. Zirael, the Swallow, the Lady of Space and time, the likeness of Pavetta in all ways except the rare few in which she resembled Emhyr himself. 

And afterward, when Emhyr’s whole life had been changed and he went to the gathering of the powerful--there stood Geralt and Eskel along the sidelines blank-faced and looking for all the world as though they had never encountered a feeling in their lives. Emhyr understood that. Respected that. It was in their case only a thin veneer, but the same could be said of Emhyr himself. 

With hs own guard up, Emhyr navigated the evening with care. He had, after all, just executed more powerful men with allies. He could not now afford to become complacent. But even so important a thing to contemplate, memories of the two Witchers kept intruding into his mind. He remembered the irreverence and heat and gentleness of their touches. He thought about how furious he still felt toward Eskel for out-maneuvering him--and how much it impressed and even pleased him that Eskel had. Eskel had caught him so neatly, and the worst part about it was that Eskel hadn’t been cruel or gloating or even intentional about it. For once, Emhyr truly believed it hadn’t been a manipulation. Perhaps it had been another little touch of Destiny, guiding the course of things. 

Emhyr's body could almost conjure the shivery feeling of the sweep of a callused hand up underneath the fall of his hair, exposing the sensitive scarred skin to the touch of a soft, warm mouth. The high collar of his robes touching him there felt stifling compared to what he wanted. 

In the end, that decided him. 

He found the Witchers where he had last seen them, leaned up against the wall and each holding a cup of wine. A minor noble of no import was talking to them, asking very offensive questions. 

“I’ve heard that Witchers eat children, is that true?” the man asked. 

As Emhyr approached, Eskel’s eyes flickered over to him. But they rested no longer upon Emhyr than they did upon anything else in the room. The skill of their public façade really was impressive. 

“I personally find nobles tastier,” Geralt replied, deadpan. The man squinted at him, unsure if this was a joke or if Geralt was being serious. “Once you peel off the skin.”

“Amhaar de Wyrial,” Emhyr addressed him just as the man started to look horrified and confused by Geralt’s response. Pressing into the man’s space, Emhyr waited for him to turn, see who was addressing him, and panic his way into a deep bow before continuing. “It behooves you to remember you are a Nilfgaardian and act accordingly. They will think you were raised in Redania if you continue behaving in this impertinent fashion.”

“Of course, Your Majesty, but they’re only Witchers, you can’t hurt their feelings,” Amhaar protested. His brows pinched together over his nose. He had just the wits to recognize and be worried by the insult Emhyr had just given him, but not enough to stop his own mouth. 

“Even supposing that to be the case, since you have voiced your inquiries out loud, you have made it so that other nearby unfortunates must listen to your drivel. Unfortunates such as myself,” Emhyr replied, raising his voice just enough so that people nearby would overhear. A woman nearby tittered behind her fan, staring hard at Amhaar. 

Amhaar saw her, and the way she nudged her friends to look at where he was being humiliated by the former Emperor, and at last realized that he had erred. 

“I, I beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” Amhaar pleaded, bowed, and slunk off into the crowd. 

Emhyr and the Witchers all watched him go with narrowed eyes. 

“Thanks for the rescue,” Geralt said after a moment. “That idiot would not leave us alone no matter what I told him.”

Emhyr immediately recognized this for the implicit scold it was: they had very literally rescued him from death, and his response had been to pout and sulk about Eskel’s cleverness in taking advantage of the situation. It had, in its own way, been an unbefitting way to behave. 

“Walk with me into the gardens,” Emhyr requested, lowering his voice now, so only they would hear. “The moonlight and candles upon the summer blooms are very beautiful.” He wondered if they were aware that taking someone into the gardens was often considered a romantic request among the Nilfgaardian elite. 

The two shared a glance between them. Then Eskel shrugged and gestured for Emhyr to lead the way. 

He brought them to a small gazebo that overlooked a lovely vista of poppies and lupins. Though their oranges and purples were dulled by the nighttime in Emhyr’s eyes, Emhyr supposed that to his company they would still be lovely. 

Judging by the way their footsteps slowed to look upon the blooms, that seemed to be the case. Eskel’s hand sought out Geralt’s and their fingers laced together, a fact which incited both jealousy and a kind of pride in Emhyr. He wanted that for himself, but he had at least allowed them this moment.

He seated himself upon one of the chairs brought out here for just such a use and waited for them to be ready to join him. With his hands folded neatly in front of him, elbows on the arms of the chair, he thought he looked both regal and that the shaking of his hands was concealed. 

When they came up the steps, they looked at the upholstered chairs brought out just for tonight and then seemed to decide that wasn’t what they wanted. Geralt instead hefted a wrought-iron bench from nearby--which had to weigh quite a lot--and brought it up into the gazebo, setting it down beside Emhyr and doubtless scuffing the marble. Emhyr suppressed his smile as he waited for them to settle, side by side, onto the bench. 

“So. You wanted to talk in private but didn’t want to just wait to come to our rooms,” Geralt said. 

Emhyr inclined his head to acknowledge this. “Just so. I thought it would be...presumptuous of me to assume I was still welcome in your chambers without speaking to you first.”

This got a snort from Geralt. “Never thought I’d see the day when _you_ worried about being presumptuous with _me.”_

“Yet here we are,” Emhyr said. “I have thought a great deal about our last conversation. Perhaps Cirilla herself has already informed you, but work has begun to place me anonymously in a series of households across the Empire. She has consented to take me between them every few months.” He paused, in case they had any commentary about this. When it seemed that they didn’t, he went on, “It occurred to me as Cirilla and I were discussing the arrangements for this that two Witchers might find suitable occupation in any of the places I will reside, should they wish to accompany me without growing bored by a sedentary lifestyle.”

A long silence greeted this. The rack of candles flickering behind Emhyr reflected in the backs of the Witchers’ eyes, illuminating their pupils in the darkness. That was fascinating even aside from how fixedly Emhyr watched their faces for any hint of response. 

“All right,” Eskel said at last, with a small nod. “I like that. Let’s try it.”

A wave of relief went through Emhyr at this, so intense that it might actually have weakened his knees had he been standing. But for the sake of surety, he pressed, “And you, Geralt? Would that be amenable to you?”

A slow, predatory smile spread over Geralt’s face. “You don’t do things by halves, do you. Straight from complete unwillingness and protests that we’ve only been involved for a week to asking us to move in.”

The way Geralt’s eyes roamed up and down Emhyr’s body as Geralt said this implied that this was meant to be flirtatious. Yet his words were a reproach. So Emhyr responded to the words. 

“I did not win the conquest of the North by failing to recognize an opportunity when it is presented to me,” he said simply. Then he turned his gaze on Eskel. “You injured my pride by so neatly manipulating me to your own ends, and further by revealing that I had already been outwitted by yet another Witcher. But I find a clever mind and sound tactical reasoning very attractive when it is not being used against me, and upon further consideration I can hardly fault your motivation in wanting to make sure I did not interfere with Letho's current mission.”

This earned him another pair of acknowledging nods. Emhyr relaxed a little further. 

To Emhyr’s own surprise, now that he had both Witchers alone, he found himself in no rush to get to the bedroom. He very much still desired them, but it was...pleasant, to be sitting in the imperial gardens at night with two people who desired him back.

It seemed that they thought the same, for when Emhyr made smalltalk about Cirilla’s plans and other topics which might be of interest to them, they made no move to hurry him anywhere either.

When enough time had passed that the party would be winding down and Emhyr’s presence in it would be required once more, he rose and indicated as much. They walked with him back to the palace, pace sedate. He could hear them breathing deeply--scenting the flowers and grounds and perhaps even him. The idea sent a little thrill through him of both dismay and excitement. What information could they glean about him from his scent?

At his request they departed the event and returned to their chambers. Emhyr dispensed with his public duties and then returned to his own rooms to undress and wash himself in a few key places before he went to their rooms in only a thin robe designed to be worn after bathing. 

When he slipped out of the correct exit of the secret passageways, he found them both waiting for him naked on the bed. The sight gave him a sense of satisfaction so intense that it was almost equal to the knowledge that he had at last conquered the North. 

Geralt rose from the bed, padding barefoot over to Emhyr and pulling at the sash of his robe. It slipped open, leaving Emhyr bare to Geralt’s gaze. One scarred hand reached down to stroke the shaved skin of Emhyr’s thigh, deliberately close to his cock. Then Geralt drew him into a kiss. 

When their mouths parted again some minutes later, Geralt purred into Emhyr’s cheek, “This time, I want you to fuck me.”

Emhyr’s hands tightened on Geralt’s waist, but he wasn’t sure how to phrase his protest that wouldn’t embarrass him with its truth. Before he could come up with a solution, Geralt continued.

“I get it, it might be hard not to come fast, but I don’t care. I just want you to fuck me.”

That Geralt had correctly interpreted the source of Emhyr’s hesitance about this act galled him as much as it pleased him. He was not used to being legible in this way. 

“As you are used to engaging with Eskel, I find I am little interested in putting myself in a position for you to make unflattering comparisons,” he replied quellingly. 

But this did not quell Geralt at all. Instead, Geralt pulled back far enough to grin at Emhyr with his arms still around Emhyr’s neck. 

“I don’t need you to be Eskel, I’ve got him for that,” Geralt said. “I wanna know how _you_ look and feel when you come inside me. Besides, I can make a guess how you’ll act--even if you come in short order, you’re going to take it personally and find other ways to wreck me. Aren’t you?”

This earned Geralt exactly the glare he ought to have expected. He only laughed at it. 

“Neatly done, phrasing that so there’s no way I can refuse to give you what you want without looking ridiculous,” Emhyr grumbled. “Fine. Since you insist.”

“If you really don’t like it--” Geralt started to say, looking almost contrite. 

“No, you have argued your point, so we are doing this experiment together now,” Emhyr answered. “Get down on the bed.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Geralt teased. He laid himself out on the mattress with his thighs spread in a clear invitation. 

Eskel looked like he meant to take all of this as a sign to sit by himself along the bedside and watch, and Emhyr wasn’t having that. So Emhyr shed his robe and then pulled Eskel down onto the bed behind him. 

“You,” he informed Eskel, “are going to instruct me on how best to handle this miscreant. I know when to defer to experts in their field.”

“Expert in my field, huh?” Eskel chuckled. He wrapped a hand around Emhyr’s belly, stroking at the navel with his thumb and sending a ticklish little thrill through Emhyr. Emhyr did his best to hide the reaction but he knew he’d only partly succeeded when Eskel chuckled again and laid an affectionate kiss on one scarred shoulder. Then Eskel leaned to the side, picking the jar of slick substance the Witchers used off the bedside table and placing the jar into Emhyr’s hand. 

“Well then. Geralt has better muscular control than your average human, so you can get right into him without much bother. I usually save the fingering for later, when I’ve already come as much as I like but I want to push his limits.”

Geralt blinked at them, turning his wide eyes to the ceiling in an expression of sudden realization. 

“You can’t teach him to torture me like you do,” Geralt protested, but Geralt was half-smiling as he said it so this was clearly a reference to some understanding between them. 

“Can’t I?” Eskel asked, popping open the lid to the jar, dipping two fingers into it, and dropping his hand between Emhyr’s legs. Emhyr grunted in shock as Eskel’s slick palm wrapped around him, working him into full hardness with expert twists until Emhyr squirmed against him. Eskel’s own cock rose in response, hot along Emhyr’s backside. Its presence there made Emhyr wistful to be in Geralt’s position. But now that he didn’t have to try to desperately take as much as he could in the anticipation that they would soon depart Nilfgaard and never see him again, he could hold that want with more patience. It could wait. 

“Come on then,” Eskel prompted Emhyr with a slap to the thigh and the removal of the jar of slick. “Get his feet up and get inside him.”

Easier said than done, Emhyr quickly discovered. Oh, the simple motions of it were straightforward enough, and Geralt himself presented no obstacle at all. He lay so pleasingly on his back, his cock pretty and purpled and all the more stark against his pale skin and bone-white thatch of hair, wearing a look of lazy satisfaction as he set his heels on Emhyr’s shoulders. Clearly he felt not a jot of worry about putting himself in this position of vulnerability. No trace now remained of the ‘Witcher emotionlessness,’ either. Instead, Geralt gave a little wiggle of eagerness as Emhyr pressed himself against Geralt’s soft opening and began very tentatively to push. 

At the first yielding of Geralt’s flesh the man’s eyes fluttered closed and he grinned, letting out a groan of satisfaction. But the hot squeeze of him just behind the head pulled a memory out of Emhyr like guts from an eviscerated man. 

The thatch between Pavetta’s legs had been a darker color as she’d lain like this for the first time. But her hair too had spread in a silvery mess across the pillows, and she had grimaced and whimpered and curled her fists in pain as soon as Emhyr had gotten the smallest distance inside her. In his anticipatory delight leading up to that moment, he had briefly forgotten to be disgusted by his own appearance. But Pavetta’s obvious distress at having him inside her had well and truly made him feel like a monster again. 

Until then he had hoped that sex would come _naturally_ once the moment arrived, would be instinctive for both of them in some animal way. It would have been in keeping with the quills all down his back--he had been forced to hold her legs away from his body to keep from spearing her, grip loose to keep his claws out of her thighs. Yet when she had gripped so tight around him he had realized the _real_ danger on his body was its cursed elements but his cock and the pleasure it felt. It had seemed to care little that Pavetta looked miserable, knowing only that she was good to be inside. 

Not knowing what else to do, he had proceeded to fuck her in the hopes that her ease and pleasure would follow after, as seemed to happen so often in books after a woman expressed discomfort. But that had proven to be nothing more than fiction. She had been rightly furious with him, dismayed at his ignorance and selfishness--and her outrage and disappointment had been matched only by Emhyr’s own. He had not wanted or dreamed of this any more than she had.

He would have stopped there, let her alone and not pursued, but political rather than physical need spurred him. He could not let Cintra’s heir slip out of his grasp. So he had swallowed down what he felt and instead woven a tight net of rhetoric about Destiny and how they were meant for one another and their sexual difficulties were merely a small obstacle in the path toward their blissful happily ever after. 

He had hidden his horror and doubt from her then, and he again hid his shame and guilt from the two Witchers now. Geralt showed no hesitation whatsoever about digging his heels in and trying to use them to pull Emhyr in closer, but Emhyr didn’t allow himself to be moved. 

Instead he held himself rigidly in place, forcing himself to _look_ at the actual man beneath him. The muscles of Geralt’s chest and arms, the brutal scars that spanned his whole body, the way he arched and grumbled in frustration, believing Emhyr’s hesitation to be a tease. Geralt was nothing like Pavetta, and it _wasn’t happening again._

Gooseflesh ran up and down Emhyr’s body as he realized then that _this_ was what he had been avoiding for the last fifteen years of celibacy. Not merely the disempowerment of feeling so ruled by his own desire, nor even a lack of trust in his potential partners, but the memory of what had been lost in that little house in the forest of Cintra where he and Pavetta had slept together for the first time. The last tattered fragments of his own innocence that had survived the curse and his father’s murder and fifteen years of exile had shriveled and died when he had lain down between Pavetta’s legs and found that all he know how to do was hurt her--a terrible double theft from her as well as him. Rather than drawing them together, so-called Destiny had left them both dirtied and more alone than ever before. 

And then _Destiny_ had presented him with Geralt, suddenly the guardian of the child Emhyr’s trespasses had sired. That Emhyr now found himself between Geralt’s legs all these years later made his head spin. 

For several more seconds Emhyr managed to hold together a façade of imperviousness. Then a puzzled expression swept onto Geralt’s face and he pushed himself up onto his elbows--which jostled their bodies enough that Emhyr’s softening cock slipped out of him. 

“Huh,” Geralt said. Before Emhyr could fumble for some excuse for this, Geralt gave a crooked smile and said, looking mischievously up at Emhyr through his white lashes, “So the truth is revealed: you’re even more of a nelly pillow-biter than I am, eh?”

Whatever Emhyr had expected by way of response, it had not been this. The shock of it against his expectations shook him out of his grim reverie. At his back, Eskel snorted, and Emhyr found that he had somehow almost forgotten the other man was there. 

“Your rudeness is truly unparalleled,” Emhyr snapped, but without his usual venom behind it, it sounded almost fond. “I am perfectly willing--”

“Sure, sure. It’s fine, you know,” Geralt laughed. “You can still fuck me. You can do it like girls do, with your hands.”

Emhyr scoffed just as Eskel’s forehead dropped to Emhyr’s shoulder and laughed. The heat of his breath against Emhyr’s shoulder blade was somehow comforting, though he couldn’t have said why. 

“Lambert might be younger, but sometimes you take after him,” Eskel said. “You’re just as tetchy when you’re frustrated.”

Distantly Emhyr recalled that there was a third surviving Witcher of the Wolf School by that name, so this remark had to be aimed at Geralt. Geralt’s expression of offense implied that this was not a flattering comparison. 

Regardless, at Eskel’s direction, Emhyr laid himself out along Geralt’s right side, while Eskel took the left. The two Witchers guided Emhyr through getting all four of his fingers inside Geralt and stroking him to a series of dramatic and messy climaxes. Memories arose from this, too--this was what Emhyr had at last worked out how to do for Pavetta during the halcyon years before the end. Emhyr’s cock plumped and subsided again several times throughout the proceedings, but to his relief never quite rose enough to be of any use. He wanted the pleasure of climax, and especially of giving Geralt what he so clearly wanted, but...

Another day, Emhyr reassured himself. They had time for this too. 

Eskel flipped Geralt onto his belly and took his place between Geralt’s legs instead. Which meant Emhyr got to watch in fascination as Eskel’s rough handling made Geralt howl into the blankets. It was so unlike how Emhyr had been with Pavetta--any thrust too hard and he had run aground inside her, much to her distress, so even after using his hands or mouth upon her to render her into a state to be taken this way, he had needed to exercise precision and control. Eskel, meanwhile, simply laughed when Geralt squirmed, and yet even so, it was nothing like violence. Not when Geralt complained anytime Eskel slowed down after a climax rendered him momentarily too sensitive. 

Afterward, when they all lay in the blankets together, Emhyr felt...relief. His felt weak and tremulous with it, and even with the action long past, he couldn’t stop sweating. He drew deep, careful breaths, not wanting to betray his inner turmoil to the others. He examined the fine carving in the wood of the ceiling and puzzled at his own reaction. 

At last, as Eskel let out a low, purring snore, a thought occurred to Emhyr: by forcing the oath that he had, Eskel had already neatly excised most of Emhyr's ability to hurt him or other Witchers again. And Lord Voorhis and the others, though it had not been their intent, had done the rest by forcing Emhyr out of the position of power in whch he had felt the need to defend Nilfgaard against the force which any united group of Witchers presented. Meanwhile Cirilla, by nature of her upbringing among Witchers, had far less to fear from them. She would instead be able to count even Letho of Gulet among her allies, as she would doubtless _want_ to fund him in repairing her childhood home of Kaer Morhen.

Emhyr had feared the revelation of what he had forced Letho to do, feared it would ruin what few alliances he could still command. But now-- _now,_ already defeated and soon to be forced into anonymous retirement--what more could Letho do? They had both been rendered toothless. 

Earlier today that had bothered him. He rather thought it would tomorrow, too. But right now, in bed with two men who somehow seemed to trust him enough for this, Emhyr felt relief. 

He would not fall asleep here. He had slept alone in his bed his entire adult life, even when married to Pavetta. The breathing and shifting of two bodies on the same mattress beside him did not tempt him to sleep, but rather pushed him further away from it. 

Yet for now he could rest here a little while longer. For now he could feel at ease. So he curled closer to Geralt's side, settling his hand a little lower on Eskel's back, and relaxed.


End file.
